


Parallel

by fragilevixen



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Relationship(s), Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-06-30 10:38:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilevixen/pseuds/fragilevixen
Summary: The aftermath of the three little words that Mulder says to Scully in his hospital bed after being rescued from the Queen Anne as it re-appeared in the Bermuda Triangle...and the strange connection that Scully starts to feel to a memory that Scully couldn't possibly have."Sometimes there is power in letting go."-Kayla King





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Post Triangle  
> What Chris refused to give us. Yes, I used the word "refused" because I fully believe that this entire concept should have been explored in some capacity.
> 
> This first chapter is very Scully-centric and will pave the way for the entire fic, join me on the journey
> 
> Disclaimer: Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, The Lone Gunmen (not mentioned in this chapter) and Assistant Director Skinner belong respectively to Chris Carter, FOX Productions, and TenThirteen Productions. All other characters are original and any likeness or named similarities to any real-life persons are purely coincidental (unless, well, you’ve been told, then you should’ve expected such things and shouldn’t get upset over anything that happens to them, respectively)

_We all have our time machines, don’t we?_

_Those that take us back are memories…_

_And those that carry us forward, are dreams._

H.G. Wells

 

 

                “Hey, Scully…” Mulder’s voice was aloof, distant, almost as if stuck in a perpetual loop of a dream as he kept looking at Scully as she had already started to walk away while he rambled on about God knows what.

                She wanted to go home or slap him, she hadn’t decided yet as she pressed her lips together and re-approached his bedside, the look in her eyes less than pleased as she leaned in, staring him down with less patience than he had anticipated. “Yes?”

                “I love you,” the words left Mulder’s mouth and they were certain, unapologetic and soft, his eyes searching her face for an answer, almost as though he knew there was a chance she wouldn’t be saying it back.

                Scully sighed, a deepened sense of frustration growing as she had to blow off the words as nothing more than a pouring of a concussed mind as she pulled her eye contact, staring at the floor in disbelief. “Oh, brother.”

                She turned and walked away from him, refusing to dwindle on the loaded confession despite the sound that the words made as she replayed them in her head. She went out into the hallway, shoulders slumping down like she had just gotten the worst news of her life as she held back the urge to scream or cry, whichever served to suffocate the feeling growing within her belly, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth. The timing was hideous as she could still smell the salt on her clothes, knowing what she went through to bring him home, knowing that they came so close to losing him over his recklessness. She wanted to march back into the room and tell him that he was selfish but the overture of hearing that he loved her was marking a spot on her brain all over again that had her remembering the way it felt to find him face down in the water, knowing how close he was to death.

                She couldn’t lose him and this was as closer than necessary.

 _He chooses now to be brutally honest and confess those words?_ She couldn’t help but think as she stood there, staring at the door to his hospital room door, contemplating going back in there to ask him if he meant it, if he was going to take it back, and if she was going to wake up tomorrow to him knowing that he was just speaking with the rattled half of his brain, not the part that worked like normal.

                She didn’t need it.

                She didn’t want it. It was too much to hear tonight.

                “What was that all about, Agent Scully?” Skinner’s voice brought her out of the self-imposed pity-party and nearly out of her skin in the process as she spun around, putting on the worst fake smile she could muster.

                Scully exhaled slowly, running her fingers through her hair before settling them against her hips, processing her own thoughts as she made eye contact with her former boss. “Just more concussion addled rambling…he’ll be fine after he rests for a while.”

                “You sure?” Skinner’s voice was different and Scully couldn’t tell if his concern was more over the incident in the elevator or genuinely for anything that was bothering her as she crossed her arms. “You don’t look particularly happy or relieved, all things considered.”

                “I think I’m just exhausted,” Scully was only half lying as she glanced at the hospital room door again, her thoughts thoroughly betraying her in equal measure with her eyes. “Searching for him has taken everything out of me and I should just get home and get some sleep…I know I need it.”

                Scully held her breath and contemplated telling Skinner the truth about everything as she felt some nagging part of herself knowing that there was a significant, if not certain, chance that he had overheard every word that just took place between Mulder and her in that room after she thought everyone else had gone. She felt that possibility rippling through her like a tidal wave as she couldn’t help but feel the intrusive stare of the man who had already risked his job to help both of them, time and again. If anyone was going to offer up a best defense it was going to be the man that had witnessed all of their trials, tribulations, and triumphs over the years, knowing exactly what was at stake over offering up such a declarative statement such as that. It was simple but so complicated and she knew it, deep down in her gut, in spite of herself, that it was a truth she wasn’t ready to face. She couldn’t, as much as the relief of saying it all out loud would be just like ripping off a Band-Aid, but she couldn’t be vulnerable.

                Not tonight.

                “Do you have your car or do you need a lift home?” Skinner wasn’t in the mood to get shouted at or smacked if her pushed the subject, watching her contemplate the door for longer than she likely intended on.

                Scully redirected her stare at the floor for a moment before shaking her head slowly, looking back at Skinner. “Oh, I brought my car, I’ll be fine, Sir…thank you. See you in the hallway on Monday?”

                “Yeah, sure, Monday…Goodnight, Agent Scully,” Skinner’s shoulder’s were slumped as she was already half turned away, the color absent from her face and a distant look in her eye.

                Scully had already taken a couple of steps toward the exit as she turned, nodding in his direction as she had that half apathetic expression on her face. “Goodnight, Sir.”

 

 

 

3 hours later

Scully’s Apartment

Georgetown, Washington, DC

 

                The shower did next to nothing to ease away the enormity of the tension running through her body nor had she felt any less anxious as she slid into a pair of pajama bottoms and tank top, the redness from the hot water still evident as she stared at herself in the fogged up mirror. She wanted nothing more than to talk to Mulder as she replayed the words “I love you” over and over in her head despite herself, betraying that last shred of something that she had been hiding away from the world, from him. Scully really didn’t drink but she wanted one with a certain level of severity as she felt the hateful stare of the woman in the mirror wafting over her, judging her lack of bravery once again. This was an ongoing problem even if Mulder’s comment had simply complicated the issue, she had taken notice, as the heavy hitting awareness of her feelings were digging up to the surface, wanting nothing more than to be exposed to the air.

                The knock at the door brought her out of the haze of thoughts as she wrinkled her eyebrows and ran her fingers through her hair, calling toward the kitchen. “Just a second!”

                Scully pulled on her robe and held it shut while half jogging toward the door, flicking the light on as she entered the kitchen before peeking out the peep hole to see exactly who was showing up at her apartment at this hour. Her eyes widened as she backed up and crossed her arms, the ridiculousness of opening the door right now was making her half livid even contemplating it. She looked through the peep hole again just to be sure she wasn’t imagining the person standing on the other side and audibly groaned, the frustration manifesting at his lack of listening skills as she slid the chain from the lock and unbolted the door, pulling it open with a less than enthused expression on her face.

                “Does your version of goodnight involve showing up at my door a couple hours later with a paper bag in your hand?” Scully wasn’t good at hiding irritation and she wanted to say this was the first inebriated man to show up at her door, but it wasn’t. “Go home, Skinner…”

                “I don’t feel right about ignoring what you did…and what I know I heard…this isn’t helping the situation,” Skinner shook the obvious pint of something at her, the partially filled bottle jiggling, making a sloshing sound with every move it made.

                “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Skinner, this has nothing to do with you,” Scully was almost laughing at the idea of her own stupidity in the elevator relating to why she hadn’t acknowledged Mulder’s confession. “Shit…well, come in before you wake my neighbors.”

                “At least I got a smile out of you?” Skinner walked in and sat down at the kitchen table, knowing he reeked of the cheap liquor that he picked up when he intended on going home. “You didn’t tell Mulder what happened in the elevator and then…I don’t know, but I know what I heard, Scully, from both of you.”

                “So, your solution is drink heavily, show up at my house, and then, what exactly?” Scully reached for the paper bag, pulling the bottle from inside. “Jesus…you’re worse than Frohike…this is the cheapest whiskey you could find, isn’t it?”

                “So I’ve been told and I’ve been marinating in it for going on three hours. All I know is one of my former subordinates kissed me in the elevator, didn’t tell my other former subordinate…both of whom spend more than enough questionable time together, and I may, or may not have, overheard a certain three word confession that seemed to be unrequited,” Skinner was rambling and Scully really wasn’t listening to his diatribe as she unscrewed the cap on the bottle and downed a healthy shot of it.  “…You weren’t listening, were you?”

                Scully winced and felt the healthy sting of the incredibly cheap whiskey as it went down, giving him a nod. “Not at all. Look, I know you mean well and I appreciate that you’re concerned but if I won’t even talk to my mother about things like this, I really don’t know how I’d talk to my former supervisor about it.”

                “I’m also a friend, Agent Scully, even if I am bordering on three sheets to the wind,” Skinner swiped the bottle back from her, taking another healthy drink of the amber liquid. “One step closer.”

                Scully pushed the door shut and pushed air through her teeth, making an audible noise as she grasped that bottle again, taking a significantly less dainty drink of it the whiskey before sitting down at the table across from Skinner. “Hopefully you’re intoxicated enough that you won’t really acknowledge or remember this conversation—what you heard, it isn’t unrequited. Quite the opposite…but I can’t risk saying it back, not when he’s like that. I nearly made that mistake before and I can’t bring myself to venture there again. He’s home, he’s safe, that’s all that I can think about right now.”

                “You really don’t think he meant it?” Skinner watched her take another less-than-pretty swallow of the whiskey and set the bottle on the table, realizing that he had drank two thirds alone and she had consumed three to four additional shots in under 90 seconds. “You’re going to feel that in about ten minutes.”

                “Less, significantly less…I don’t know if he meant it, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Scully was already feeling the effects of the whiskey as she had her hand up to the bridge of her nose, gently rubbing the space between her eyes, the thoughts less and less willing to stay buried. “Why am I even telling you this? Do you feel entitled to it because of what happened in the elevator? Choose your words carefully.”

                “It’s nothing against you but I really don’t need to picture that again so stop mentioning it, Scully,” Skinner stood and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms, rubbing his eyes as she stayed seated, looking worse for the wear. “Stop living in fear of an unknown. You and Mulder both have a fairly terrible habit of doing that—and have been spending time towing a line that everyone else but you sees. One day you’ll wake up and realize that you’re alone by choice just like he is. You’ll have no one to blame but yourselves for being complete chicken shits…the only thing he has over you is that he can say he told you how he felt, you didn’t.”       

                “Wow, so you’re a profound, philosophical drunk,” Scully stood, grabbed the bottle of his dwindled remnants of liquor and opened the door. “Did you want the rest of this or did you reach your limit tonight?”

                “It seems like you might need the rest of that more than I do, Scully,” Skinner walked into the hallway and as she was pushing the door shut he put his hand out, stopping her in mid closure. “I do have one question before I bury the topic entirely—why exactly did you kiss me?”

                Scully rolled her eyes, sighing softly as she looked at him almost in disbelief. “I really hoped that the reason was blatantly obvious but since it wasn’t, it was gratitude, for helping me locate Mulder before he got himself killed. I’m realizing more often than not that much of my relief and elation is over figuring something out because of or for him…wow, that sounded more pathetic than intended.”

                “It’s not pathetic, but it’s further proof that you should probably tell him how you feel, Scully,” Skinner’s eyebrows raised as he pulled his coat shut and shrugged his shoulders, turning toward the exit. “Goodnight, for the second time.”

                “Goodnight, Skinner,” Scully pushed the door closed and locked the deadbolt then the chain before rubbing her eyes as she stood in her empty kitchen. “Fuck.”

                Scully glanced at the bottle sitting on the table with two, plump shots at least left in the bottom as she felt the heat forming along her cheeks from the second wave of the alcohol kicking in. She picked up the bottle, tossed the paper bag into the trash, flicked the lights off and carried it off toward her bedroom. Turning to burying the feeling in the bottom of a bottle wasn’t the normative for Scully but Skinner was right, she needed the rest of it tonight, simply to cope with the feelings, to unjumble the thoughts as they bounced around in her head. She turned the corner, stood in the doorway of her bedroom and allowed the soft light of her bedside lamp to lure her in as she tore off the bathrobe and tossed it on top of her dresser. The mental frustration was reaching its peak as she slid out of her pajama bottoms and pulled the covers back, climbing into her cold, empty bed alone with the bottle still between her fingers of her left hand.

                She looked at the bottle, the light reflecting in the liquid, and felt that tug of emotions roaring through her like a freight train without any brakes. It hurt, down to her core, as she spun the lid free and held it between her fingers, staring into the top of the bottle, hoping that it would do the trick tonight to take away at least part of the suffering even if only for a little while. There was something intensely ironic about the situation as she raised the bottle to her lips and finished the last of the liquid, setting the empty bottle on the edge of her nightstand.

                She hated admitting that she didn’t want to be alone tonight as she reached for the light switch, turning the lamp off at her bedside, muttering to herself. “Why did you have to go and get yourself hurt enough to require observation, Mulder? Not that it would do me any good to explain why the fuck I am tipsy tonight…”

                It was one of the more unpleasant feelings as she kept one leg above the covers, her toes wiggling as she allowed the cool air to waft over her skin, the sweat already gathering at her hairline from the alcohol. She sat in the dark, eyelids heavy, thoughts running through the scenario again as she could hear him all over again telling her all about the ship, Skinner being there and her being there along with other details that didn’t actually happen. He was so certain, so sure of himself, as usual and didn’t waiver, even when he let the “I love you” leave his mouth like he had been waiting to say it to her for ages, for that moment when he knew that he could give in long enough to let her hear it. She wasn’t just afraid to say it back, she was afraid of the consequences of admitting that being in love with her partner hadn’t been something new. She didn’t like the control that it gave him, that she was willing to give him by even admitting it to herself let alone the possibility of ever saying it to him.

                “Why did you do this to me tonight? Why couldn’t you do this when you’re unaffected by an injury or catastrophe?” Scully fell back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling, almost in tears as she wished she were saying it to his face, confessing. “I am a chicken shit.”

 

 

_She was everything real_

_In a world of make believe_

-Atticus

 

 

                They had been running for what felt like forever, along long corridors, down hallways that she didn’t recognize, following Mulder aimlessly and ducking behind doorways hiding from the next set of oddly dressed strangers with guns. None of this was a new concept aside from the sound of their voices, foreign, mixed with heavy accents and lacking a general concept of the English language. She subtly thanked her minor stint in German but didn’t want to listen to a word of it as they ran, hid, and poorly formulated the next move. She could smell the salt above the sweat in the air, the previously flowing alcohol and readied meals for everyone prior to the onslaught of melee. She guessed that the chaos was their fault and she would probably be right, given the circumstances, as they found themselves shoving a door open that lead to a deck in the open air.

                Scully’s recollections of being dolled up in her adult life were slim but the red lips, deep red dress, and little, highlighted curls in her hair were striking, distinctive, and obvious as she couldn’t help but notice his eyes on her again. This was fight or flight beating behind her chest but something felt crazy as she looked at Mulder with a desperation to find the answers hiding behind those eyes that she had been looking into for years, only to not recognize who was looking back at her this time. She was used to Mulder’s wandering gaze but not like she was, in fact, a piece of rare steak and he hadn’t eaten in days. She wasn’t used to looking straight at him and capturing that kind of expression, certainly not out in the cold.

                Out in the cold. Seagulls. Ocean air. A rippling underneath their feet that couldn’t be explained as the structure shifted, swayed just enough to be noticed.

                “What are you doing?” She recognized the sound of her own voice but nothing made sense even with his hand around her wrist as she pulled away multiple times to no avail.

                She couldn’t even begin to understand exactly what he was trying to tell her or fathom where he was going with all of this but she understood the expression written on his face, caught somewhere between desperation and something else. She couldn’t tell if it was love or lust but it was something, buried beneath that comfortable, sweaty shirt he was wearing. She couldn’t even begin to know or realize exactly what he was talking about, or at least the gravity of his statements. Nothing made a lick of sense but that look in his eye certainly did and the feeling that his voice has always inflicted within her bones did as she licked her lips again out of instinct. Mulder’s fingers refused to leave her wrist, his need to convey every little word to her as he spilled his guts in spite of how crazy it sounded, and it did sound crazy.

                “Are you crazy?” She couldn’t help herself as she looked up at him before he continued on with his diatribe about Einstein and history.

                _History. Einstein. Jesus Christ, Mulder, what are you trying to say, here?_ She couldn’t understand any of it but she couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop his oration. He wanted her to know her place in history and she felt the reverberations as his voice softened, clinging to the words “and neither will you” as he gazed down at her, that same gaze that she had felt so many times touching her whether she was looking or not. The idea was preposterous but she didn’t move as she felt the distinct impression that he believed every word of this bat-shit crazy idea, that they were facing a rift in space, a time warp, straight from the pages of a poorly constructed marriage between Einstein and a sci-fi novel. Science was pure and this had taken a serious, left hand turn down the rabbit hole in the worst way.

 _Drug trip, Mulder, you are on a drug trip. Simple as that._ Scully was thinking it as she stared at those intense, beautiful hazel eyes all over again.

                “So, in case we never meet again,” Mulder was terrible at subtlety and warning shots as he pulled her in, gathering her by the back of her head to find those red, somewhat overly done up lips.

                She wasn’t expecting the kiss but she’d be lying if it wasn’t making her head swim as he held her there, masculine and muscular as ever, too tentative to push a limit as she felt his tongue brush against the curves of her lips, his mouth opening, hoping that she’d let him in but she froze. She didn’t know what to do. The concept of being frightened of him was foreign but she was completely dumbfounded by his actions as she kept her eyes half open, with an uncertainty of the consequences of such a bold move. The feeling was new and overwhelming as there seemed to be a heat coursing through him, melting into her, pushing into her sphere and the only thoughts running through her mind were of how good it felt yet couldn’t stop focusing on the pure idiocy of his speech.

                The kiss was just long enough to get a grasp of the feel of his skin, the taste of his lips, and the feel of his hands to hold her in just the right way—and leave her with a feeling of shock as they separated. She couldn’t believe her own actions as she let the right hand fly, meeting his chin with a well-delivered right hook that barely knocked him off balance. It wasn’t necessarily the thought that had crossed her mind in that moment but her actions didn’t feel entirely like they belonged to her anymore as she reeled, stunning herself in the process. The hit hurt her far worse than it did for him as she cradled her own hand, shaking it after she smarted herself from a decent attempt at popping Mulder across the jaw.

                “I was expecting the left,” He held the spot and managed to keep looking at her with that same hungry expression in spite of the hit to his chin.

                “What in the fuck just happened?” Scully half shouted as she sat upright, sweating bullets in her bed, her heart racing as she found herself tangled in her sheets as though nothing had happened.  

                She rolled toward the nightstand and switched the light back on, the sweat dripping down her forehead, hand reaching for the clock to instinctively check the time. The face read 3:15 AM across the digital display in red and it sent a wave relief through her as the dream started to peel away. She wanted to blame it on the alcohol as she glanced at the empty whiskey bottle and rolled her eyes but she knew, somewhere inside of herself, that it wouldn’t be the case with the amount that she had consumed. Scully knew that she wasn’t getting back to sleep as the image of her mouth gathered so easily against Mulder’s was damn near plastered in her brain as she reached for the phone sitting on the edge of the nightstand, perched in the charging station. She dialed and held it to her ear, the ringing starting almost instantly.

                “I am going to regret this,” Scully was already contemplating hanging up in mid-ring as she wiped her forehead with her free hand and brought her knees almost all of the way up to her chest, hugging herself against the headboard.

                The other end sounded labored and there was a crunching sound for a second followed by a groan before the speaking began. “Ok, I had to explain myself showing up to your apartment drunk…now you’re calling me at three in the morning after you took the last of my whiskey, Agent Scully.”

                “When you say it like that it sounds inappropriate,” Scully could still feel the whiskey flowing through her veins as much as she’d like to deny it.

                “Don’t just sit there breathing in my ear, Scully. What do you want?” Skinner was obviously maneuvering outside, the yawn was loud as was his sliding glass door.

                “My usual, middle of the night phone call recipient is currently confined to a hospital bed and hopefully sleeping, for once—and that sounded far more loaded than it needed to be,” She could already hear the chuckling from the other end of the phone from the Freudian slip as she took a breath, the tipsiness still in effect.

                “Are you still drunk, Scully?” Skinner was half slurring his words as it was but he was calling her on her bullshit right there.

                “I finished that bottle so that’s probably a decent assessment of the situation—stop judging me, Skinner,” Scully took a deep breath, thoroughly embarrassed with herself. “I’ve been thinking about what you said and I think you might be right about me. I am a chicken shit.”

                “Scully, make a choice to not be. It’s obvious that something is bothering you and the hospital is only going to be keeping Mulder for another night, possibly two, for observation. Be honest with him, say what you need to say,” Skinner was in mid yawn and the sound of passing by cars momentarily drowned him out as he started to speak again. “Take a chance.”

                “Is that advice coming from my former boss or a friend?” Scully let her legs straighten out and wiped the last of her sweat from her neck.

                “A very drunk friend who knows the lengths that you have already gone for Mulder—and the lengths that he has gone for you,” Skinner let out a laugh as he continued to speak, his teeth slightly chattering as he was clearly chilly. “Your former boss is currently rolling his eyes and can’t be trusted. Now can I go back inside and pass back out, Scully? I need sleep.”

                “Did you go out on the balcony to talk to me?” Scully reached over and turned the light back off, already laughing at him a little bit.

                Skinner wasn’t amused in the slightest as he made a noise, the sound of the door sliding shut preceded his voice. “The cold air was the only thing keeping me awake enough to talk on the phone, go back to sleep.”

                “Sure thing, Skinner, easier said than done,” Scully waited for him to hang up before she put the phone back onto the charging receiver and scooted back down against the pillows, returning to complete silence.

                Scully glanced at the clock again and felt that sting again, that sick feeling coming over her again as she thought about her dream. It was too real and too detailed not to recall it vividly, fixation on it was something she couldn’t quite control as the feeling of Mulder’s lips upon her own was sharp, targeted in the core of her mind. Scully rolled onto her side and looked at the sliver of the moon peeking through the curtains, contemplating the light as she pulled the pillow against her chest, gripping the cotton material as though she were drifting at sea all over again. She could still smell his sweat above the salty air and could distinctly feel his hand against the back of her head, while his other slid along the bare skin of her elbow, keeping her close.

                Sleep was going to escape her tonight and she didn’t know what to do as she felt the tears welling up, stinging her eyelids as they begged to fall again.

                “It was just a dream, it was just a dream, it was just a dream,” Scully closed her eyes, almost clamping them shut, refusing to believe in attachment to a thought that didn’t belong to her.


	2. Muscle Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the three little words that Mulder says to Scully in his hospital bed after being rescued from the Queen Anne as it re-appeared in the Bermuda Triangle...and the strange connection that Scully starts to feel to a memory that Scully couldn't possibly have.
> 
> Mulder returns to the office -- "there be angst here"
> 
> Post Triangle – Please note, for the sake of sanity, we are calling the rescue date Friday so that he wouldn’t be returning to work in any capacity from observation until Monday morning. If someone has actual dates from that ep, just let me know because I searched the episode multiple times and couldn’t find dates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timing is everything and if your timing is wrong...it can become a bigger mess than what you started with. 
> 
> Approach with caution (love you guys!)
> 
> Disclaimer: Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, and Assistant Director Skinner belong respectively to Chris Carter, FOX Productions, and TenThirteen Productions. All other characters are original and any likeness or named similarities to any real-life persons are purely coincidental (unless, well, you’ve been told, then you should’ve expected such things and shouldn’t get upset over anything that happens to them, respectively)

 

_Guess the misery spawns_

_Or the body it haunts_

_And we do what it wants_

-Lights “Muscle Memory”

 

 

7:15 AM, Monday Morning

FBI Headquarters

 

                Scully had been having that same, bordering on haunting dream every night since she left the hospital on Friday night and the dark circles under her eyes were apparent as she dragged ass toward her desk in the bullpen. She was relieved to see that there really wasn’t anyone else overachieving like it appeared she was as she unbuttoned her coat and double checked the elevation of her skirt before she rounded the corner toward her little space facing Mulder’s empty desk. She sighed as she slid out of her coat and tossed it over the back of her chair, the sleeplessness fully taking her by force and she wanted nothing more than to sink into her seat, put her head down, and pretend like she was invisible. She felt like she might be owed that much, under the circumstances. Everything was completely off balance and it was truly reminisce of unruly college days of thinking “I can definitely do that” in regards to staying up multiple nights running knowing the kind of schedule she was running day in and day out. It didn’t feel good then and it was even worse now as she felt her eyelids starting to ache as she moved a stack of paperwork from her inbox, glancing through them briefly.

                “Fuck my life,” Scully groaned as she put her hot coffee on the desk and stared at the blank, still off computer screen. “Why didn’t I just call in sick today?”

                “Because you’re not the playing hooky type,” Skinner’s all too familiar voice made her want to reach for her revolver and eat a bullet right there as she half banged her head against the desk. “That was dramatic.”

                “Why are you here so early?” Scully’s voice was muffled and her dignity was all but gone as her skirt felt as though it was already riding up her thighs, the desk drawer pushing against her knee, the desire to hide rising. “Wait, why are you here? You’re not my supervisor anymore.”

                Skinner was far too awake, well rested and composed for her liking as he had a smirk on his face, nudging her chair until she sat up. “I’ve been here for over thirty minutes. It can’t possibly be that bad, Scully.”

                Scully was three seconds from elbowing him in the testicles but she refrained as she picked up the to-go cup of coffee and cradled it, sipping the first, hot mouthful of the well put together drink. “I haven’t slept in three days. I haven’t talked to my partner in three days. I don’t know which way is up or down…and now I’m rambling at seven in the morning to a man who really needs to wipe that shit eating grin off of his face.”

                Skinner was painfully aware of the incredibly pensive, frustrated energy that she was leeching like heat as she made eye contact with him, burning a hole through him with one of her patented glares. He knew she wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest about the lack of sleep as the dark circles weren’t the extent of the visibility of her restlessness had invaded her sclera with lines of red from popped capillaries and heavy vein presence. She had been crying at some point, he stopped to consider, as she drank a little more of her coffee despite the shakiness of her hands as she held the cup close to her face. This wasn’t Scully even on her worst of days and he was almost certain she was beating herself up for a lot more than simply hiding her feelings from Mulder. The damage was significantly worse and pushing her would result in considerably more than a verbal beating from the petite redhead shooting daggers at him.

                Skinner noticed that a few people had come in and were slowly starting up their work stations but weren’t within earshot as he started to speak, concerned over her health and well-being. “Scully, I’m going to assume, by the look on your face, that you didn’t go see him when he got released from the hospital last night to discuss anything important with him?”

                Scully swallowed hard and did her best to choke back the tears, the dream induced insomnia finally catching up to her as she set the cup on the desk and crossed her legs, awkwardly angling away from him. “I talked to him briefly on the phone last night when he got home and by talked, I mean, I listened to him ramble about how terrible hospital food is and how much paperwork he had waiting for him when he got back here.”

                “That’s the fanciest way of telling me no. Are you going to talk to him or are you going to keep avoiding the situation?” Skinner could see her white knuckling the armrest of her chair while he continued to make it fairly awkward for her to be remotely comfortable in front of people as they walked into the bullpen.

                “Are you really interrogating me when I look like death warmed over knowing that I could potentially shoot you in the testicles, Skinner?” Scully didn’t want to laugh but the idea was starting to bug her as she aimed her finger at him, wiggling it at him with full indication of her weapon. “You aren’t supposed to be remembering any of that shit anyway.”

                Mulder couldn’t have chosen a worst possible time in the entire world to show up to work or any other day to be early to work as he walked in to catch the last part of that sentence along with the widest of smiles upon Scully’s lips as he cleared his throat, not making eye contact immediately. “Morning.”

                Scully deflated and resisted that flood of tears all over again as she watched her partner’s, the man that had become every bit of the definition of the best friend, shoulders slump as he caught the most awkward of conversations. She felt like an asshole and it capped off the mess that the past three days had been as she bit down on her lip, yearning for him to just look at her even if it meant she knew how just how pissed off and hurt he was, simply from misunderstanding the situation. Everything had blown completely out of control and they had gotten to this point before—she wished they had learned from their past but that simply wasn’t the case as she watched him completely avoid looking at her all over again, as though she was not even in front of him. Scully reached for her cup again, sipping the hot coffee as a couple of stray tears escaped much to her chagrin. She wiped them like little stray hairs and awkwardly folded her hands in her lap after putting the cup down, doing everything she could not to break down in front of everyone like a toddler that had just been publicly admonished for sucking on their thumb after dirt had been on it.

                “Morning, welcome back, Agent Mulder,” Skinner was the worst at small talk and he was completely awkward as he stood a little straighter and managed to make eye contact with a confused, increasingly irritated Mulder. “How’s the head doing?”

                Mulder’s stare slipped toward Scully, a look of worry passing over him as he searched her face, needing answers before glancing up at Skinner. “Like I’ve been caught in a propeller…and spat back out. I’ll be fine once I get back into my old routine, I suppose.”

                “I should get back to work—try not to get into trouble before noon?” Skinner was doing everything he could to make himself scarce as he could see Scully completely shutting down before their very eyes, as though the wind had left her.

                “Trouble is my middle name, Skinner,” Mulder put on his best fake smile and fiddled with a stack of paperwork, thumbing over a section signed by Scully with a sense of longing and regret stinging at him. “Won’t be your trouble to fix, though…this time.”

                The comment was one of the more loaded statements that he could’ve made as Scully made eye contact with Mulder, her nervousness written across her face like neon flashing as she instinctively tugged at her skirt and scooted all the way back in her seat. He wanted to understand why she was so jumpy, so strung out as the voice he heard on the phone didn’t correspond to the woman that was sitting across from him nor did her smile moments ago match the deer-in-the headlights before him. Something wasn’t right and he couldn’t tell if he was the reason or if he had interrupted something far more private than she had wanted him to. Mulder was usually pretty decent at reading people but he, more often than not, failed miserably at reading the facial expressions and body language of his enigmatic partner that had done so well at leading him down a path that had him stupidly professing that he loved her while he was laid up in a hospital bed.

                Skinner was in a bit of a stick situation as he walked away, leaving Scully with the strangely silent Mulder, who hadn’t quite found the patience to look her in the eye yet. He waited until Skinner was completely out of sight to find her in his peripheral, noticing that she was pale, less rested than normal, and didn’t seem particularly in the mood to talk. She could feel his eyes on her as she glanced up and pushed a weak, labored smile his way, the visible sadness hitting him as her eyes completely betrayed the rest of her face. Coming back to the office in the midst of an inconvenient moment was the least of Mulder’s problems as he could still feel the hellacious body aches from the jump into the water and the consequent pull from the same frigid depths. He was gracious of the living, breathing part but could have done without the waves of pain that still radiated from his back, legs, arms, and even his head regardless of the fact he completely brought it upon himself.

                “Did you get any sleep last night?” Scully was searching for the right words as she felt the ill-timed muscle memory of feeling his lips against her own as he bit down on his bottom lip when she caught him looking at her.

                Mulder shook his head, glancing at the paper cup of coffee in front of him, contemplating the steam rising from it. “I got more sleep than I usually do but I still woke up pretty early—hence why I’m here, I guess.”

                “That is at least something, I suppose,” Scully felt particularly brave as she stood, gathering the nearly empty cup of coffee from the desk, purposely walking in a direction that put her hip right next to him, standing in such a way that he had to turn to look up at her. “You know, if you had wanted company…you could’ve just asked.”

                That line passed through her lips like a well-directed line from a cheesy John Hughes and Scully’s ears were ringing with about thirty different 80s songs that could’ve been played as a soundtrack while she half humiliated herself in front of Mulder. She hated to admit it but even angry, he was incredibly alluring to look at and she couldn’t help herself 90% of the time. The only thing that would often save her from feeling like a total idiot was that in most circumstances when she stole that longing glance, his eyes were actually looking back at her. The energy had changed and she was doing everything to fix it, even if she looked more like a hapless, uncoordinated teenager than a capable, grown woman in front of him.

                Mulder nearly swallowed his own tongue as he could hear the words but the shakiness was evident as she started to walk away, giving him only a moment to grasp her at the wrist. “What if I had, Scully? Don’t make statements you’re not prepared to follow through on.”

                Scully had been tormenting herself just fine since she walked out of the hospital room and now he was helping her finish the job as she tried not to crumble in front of him. “Mulder…”

                He was on his feet, standing in front of her, diffusing more heat than she could even place as she instinctively grasped the edge of the desk and swallowed hard to avoid a full collision with him as he half stared her down, his scent intoxicating. “If you don’t mind, I need to copy these, Scully.”

                Scully was taken aback as she felt a rush of uneasiness flooding through her followed by the complete mortification that he had just left her with as he walked away with a small stack of paperwork in his grip. She glanced at her hands and watched each of her digits vibrate with the pure anxiety that had taken over her. Luckily, only a good six to seven other Agents had even entered the bullpen and none of them had even noticed their bordering on inappropriate interaction. It was the first time in a long time that she felt truly fragile as she felt every nerve simultaneously cry out, reminding her of the power that he had over her—it was more than she could take with this little energy coursing through her. She took in a deep breath and held it there as she felt the dizziness flooding her senses before she forced herself to move away from Mulder’s desk to get that second cup of coffee. She maneuvered beyond the desks and went into the hallway, purposely intending on going to the furthest coffee station in hopes that no one else was camped out by it as per usual.

                The walk was shorter than she had planned as she barely felt her own heels touching the floor, tapping each little space as she turned a corner toward one of the less busy areas. She supposed she could have gone down the street if she really felt like avoidance but she didn’t want to go back for her coat or her wallet. This was settling for half a prayer, she supposed. Her hopes were dashed as she immediately made eye contact with Arlene, Skinner’s secretary, as she came around the corner with her cup in her hand. Arlene was one of the building’s more notorious gossips and she could already hear the developing chatter about “strung out Scully” and her shaking fingers at the coffee station looking like she was hungover or God knows what. Scully forced a smile as she walked into the room and went to the first carafe to pour a new cup of coffee as Arlene turned purposely toward her, swirling a straw in her own cup. Scully kept her eyes low, managing to pour her coffee without incident and only glanced at Arlene’s pretty little grin once as she reached for the sugar and creamer, desperately hoping their interaction would end there.

                “Good morning, Agent Scully, so I noticed Agent Mulder is back today,” Arlene dashed all of Scully’s wishes and aspirations for an incident free trip to get coffee as she started talking immediately about Mulder. “How’s he doing? I know you were running around here quite frantic last week…”

                Scully held in the yearning to audibly sigh as she pushed the lid back onto her cup and feigned another smile, hiding the discomfort as Arlene wasted no time in going right for her jugular. “As well as can be expected under the circumstances, I suppose. It’s a pretty busy day, though, being a Monday morning after not accomplishing much at all on Friday. I’ll let him know you said ‘hi’, though, Arlene.”

                “I’m sure I’ll see you both later…always do since you’re almost attached at the hip or if you find one, the other isn’t far behind looking like the cat that ate the canary,” Arlene knew that the little jab was a loaded statement in more than one way as she took a sip of her coffee and watched Scully shift her weight in her heels. “Too much coffee already?”

                “You could say that,” Scully picked up her cup and walked into the hallway and nearly collided with Skinner as she fast walked toward the bullpen, doing everything she could to get as far from Arlene’s line of sight as she could. “Jesus Christ on a crutch, Skinner, what in the hell?”

                “How is it possible that you look a little worse than you did when I left the bullpen, Scully?” Skinner’s words weren’t often minced as couldn’t help but watch her check herself for any spilled coffee like a startled cat, the color all but gone from her face. “Have things gotten that bad in there?”

                Scully started to open her mouth to answer in the affirmative and saw Mulder out of the corner of her eye walking past looking a lot less confused and more jealous with every passing second as he only stood still long enough for her to notice that he was there. “Oh, just fucking shoot me…If I last an entire day it will be a fucking miracle with Mulder’s incredibly terrible timing and my nerves on high alert. You can’t keep cherry picking moments to show up or bump into me, either.”

                “Did he just walk up on me talking to you?” Skinner rolled his eyes and watched her fumble around with the coffee cup, the look of disdain all over her face.

                “What? You couldn’t tell by the ‘just fucking shoot me’?” Scully started to walk away and looked back at him only once as she maneuvered toward the doorway. “I’m serious, try not to make it worse—especially if you think that advice that you handed to me is worth taking, Skinner.”

                She didn’t wait for a response from him as she went back into the bullpen, carrying her coffee past the sections of desks as she approached Mulder, who had his back to her, angled with his face at his computer screen. She was shocked that he was actually working as she came up to their little work area that, much to his chagrin in this moment, faced each other. Mulder was angry, jealous, and most of all, he was hurt as he found himself watching her sit down without even thinking about the consequences of her catching him doing so but her inner trepidations of even looking back kept her from wanting to acknowledge him right away. She put the coffee cup down and winced as she felt her stomach go in knots contemplating what he could’ve possibly assumed about witnessing her bumping into Skinner.

                She only wanted to get through the day—if her body would grant her the one mercy of allowing her a shred of sanity to do so. As she looked up, her eyes finally met his and the actuality of the hurt was written on his face like a thousand words in prose, all aimed at telling her just how much she was ruining him, in every possible way. She wanted to look away but she was drawn in like she always had been simply because it was him, he just didn’t know it yet.

 

 

 

_The longer you hide your feelings for someone,_

_The more you fall for them._

-Anonymous

 

5:30 PM

The Bullpen

 

                Mulder had been doing his absolute best to completely ignore Scully for the majority of the day, including blowing her off for lunch when she purposely invited him to get away for a while to talk privately. Sanity for both of them was hanging by a shred and the atmosphere between them had grown increasingly anxious as Scully had been drinking more coffee than she should have been to combat the sleeplessness while Mulder was adopting a sarcastic tone when he would actually speak. They were acting like an embittered, old married couple who were in serious need of reevaluation but hadn’t noticed that things were starting to go completely south, unlike those that knew them best. Scully was doing damn near everything she could to talk to him and he was rebuffing her at every turn, even to the point of half ducking her to talk to a group of people at the end of the day near the water cooler that he wouldn’t ordinarily ever speak to.

                Luckily, giving up wasn’t a set of words that she cared to follow even though he had already shut down his computer for the day while she still had to put away a bunch of documents and clear off her inbox. Her eyes kept hovering over at the ridiculous display of masculinity going on at the water cooler, her jealousy brewing as she watched what could only be described as flirting between Mulder and Agent Eliza Daniels, one of the transfers from the science division. If he wanted to have a stimulating conversation about science, he knew where to find one, but something told Scully that it was about purposely making her witness it than anything else as she nearly slammed her own finger in her top drawer. A near miss in her not-so-unobvious frustration. The phone rang while Mulder was still meandering by the group of gossips and Scully picked it up as she was doing her best to quickly clear out her inbox, and organize the pile of paperwork in front of her.

                “Don’t talk, just listen,” Skinner’s voice was distinctive as she held the receiver to her ear and held her breath, the emotions starting to wear on her. “I’ll take care of your vouchers and remaining paperwork. Don’t thank me. Just go. If you don’t talk to him, you only have to blame yourself for the continued awkward bullshit I’ve witnessed today.”

                He hung up on her and even if she had been able to respond the only thing she would’ve said was that he was right. Blaming herself was the easy part but telling Mulder exactly how she felt was an entirely different beast that she had been running from for a very long time. That was something she had gotten good at—hiding from him. She turned off the computer screen and gathered up her coat and purse, dropping the empty cup in the trash as Mulder was walking toward her, his eyes on the carrying case he had brought in with him at the beginning of the day that held some files he was planning on taking home to go over at home. He picked it up and started to walk away but looked back at her, letting out a deep, resigning sigh as he could see her fragile body language on display. Neither of them wanted to admit it but her entire physical presence was frighteningly close to when she was hiding the cancer from him, a thought that had both of them nauseated even remembering.

                “I parked next to you—if you are ready to head out for the night, we can walk down together, Scully,” Mulder made it sound like a chore but she wanted to pick her battle as she nodded and followed him out, resembling a scolded puppy than a strong, independent woman and she knew it.

                The walk to the garage was tricky, bordering on uncomfortable for both of them. Scully was walking on eggshells and Mulder’s patience was thinning as he could see her chewing a hole through her own lip in the corner of his eye. She had been deliberate in trying to step into his comfort zone for the entire day to confront him and had retreated into her usual “deny everything” stance, giving him more than a little bit of heartburn as the doors to their level opened. He had opened his heart to her in the hospital and it felt as though everything had changed as there was nothing more than a stiff, inconvenienced woman standing next to him, void of pleasantries. He wanted to see the part of her that had almost opened up before but seemed to collapse in on itself all because he opened his big, idiot mouth.

                “Scully, I don’t know what happened after you left and I don’t want to know but if it was caused by what I said to you then just forget I said it—pretend like it didn’t happen,” Mulder’s tone was brash as he flung open the passenger side door of his car and tossed the carrying case into the seat, slamming the door before moving toward the back of the car. “It’s blatantly obvious that you just don’t want to offend me, but please, spare me the details.”

                It was like he had finally said the right combination of words to strip away at her remaining defenses as the tears started to fall, everything spilling out as she could no longer control it. “You are unbelievable, Mulder. You’ve been purposely avoiding me since you got here.”

                “What do you expect from me? I got home last night and called you, everything seemed fine,” Mulder was at a loss for words as he looked at her, dumbstruck by her tears. “Today is a complete change as you look like a different person than the woman just a little annoyed with me at the hospital.”

                “I haven’t slept since I left the hospital, Mulder, but I’m sure that my complete lack of composure didn’t clue in for you since it’s all about you,” Scully wanted to tear him apart and feel him all over her in the same breath as she watched his jaw clench while fidgeting in an already uncomfortable skirt, her nylons making her sweat just a little more. “The pure selfishness that you can’t seem to even realize you possess has you blind to what is right in front of you and I have been killing myself thinking that it mattered to you. It never did, did it, Mulder?”

                “What are you talking about, Scully?” Mulder was pissed but the pure emotional cataclysm she was experiencing had him slightly back pedaling, realizing how much she had been holding in.

                “You ditched me and I fought to find your reckless, horrendously stupid ass. I found you floating face down, next to death, and the only thing running through my mind was how fucking close I came to losing you again, don’t you understand that?” She really wanted to punch him as she did her best to hold onto her purse and coat, every muscle aching as she searched his face for any sign that he understood. “What do I have to do to show you that I’d go to the ends of the Earth to save you even if it seems to never, ever mean a thing to you, every time?”

                “You fought to save my stupid ass but yet you couldn’t wait to blow me off the second you had an opportunity to at the hospital,” Mulder pushed, digging at her a little deeper, knowing that the wound hadn’t begun to close as he watched her face contort, the tears considerably heavier than they were before. “I bet it was a great laugh the second you left that room to know that you had broken through Spooky Mulder’s exterior and conned him into telling you that he loves you. Really fantastic, Scully, just fucking superb.”

                “Maybe saying it to me was a mistake for a lot of reasons, Mulder, but not for the ones that you think—and if there actually was a heart underneath of the icy, cold layer in my chest left for me to offer, you’ve already broken it,” Scully was sobbing as the most honest, matter of fact words left her lips in regards to a statement regarding loving him, her entire body rigid as she stood just a few inches in front of him. “I didn’t say it back for fear that you’d take it back and I’d be left at square one looking like an even bigger moron than I was when we got forced out of our office because of her.”

                He didn’t want to admit that the words cut into him from the concept that he had already broken her heart but it did as he felt his stomach drop and his head spin as he looked down at her. “I bet that felt really amazing to pile on me, didn’t it, Scully?”

                “I have been trying literally the entire day to tell you how I feel and express to you the kind of hell that I’ve been in because of thoughts I can’t escape over you. I’m not good at this, Mulder, and I never have been…maybe I never will be,” Scully’s tears had all but stopped as she adjusted her grip on her coat and purse, her eyes becoming more bloodshot from the finally letting go of some of the emotional weight on her shoulders. “If that is all you got from what I’ve said to you, you’re not even listening.”

                “I wouldn’t be continue to stand out here listening to this if I didn’t want to talk to you, Scully,” Mulder was becoming less aware of just how much of an ass he was sounding like as he chose his words like a bull in a China shop as she started to move toward her car. “Maybe you would feel more comfortable confiding in your new best friend, Skinner?”

                The question was the icing on the cake as Scully threw her coat and purse into her car, standing with the driver’s side door open as she hoped that no one had heard this ridiculous fight. “Mulder, go fuck yourself.”

                Mulder didn’t even have time to respond to the incredible, incendiary remark that had left her lips as she slammed her car door and nearly squealed her wheels to leave him dumbfounded at the trunk of his car. Nothing could be simple and yet, complication had created the mess that they were both in as they felt the nagging reminder of a growing, emotionally driven rift between them was even more painfully obvious as they could no longer see the other within view. There was something satisfying yet hollow in the realization that she had been honest about some of her feelings but had completely left out the details about the dreams as she pressed her lips together, bitterly recollecting the haunting and familiar taste of his lips mixed with the salt in her tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please bear with me, chapter 3 is already in progress and yes, it has some angst but not nearly as thick as this one.**
> 
> Quotes by:  
> Lights – Muscle Memory lyrics – please check out both versions of this song, it is a hauntingly good song  
> Additional quote by Anonymous
> 
> References made:  
> John Hughes films (queue the cheesy 80s music)
> 
> Extra thank you to Monika for reading a bunch of passages, helping me keep my sanity, and giving me a little boost to see more than just a hot mess of words on a screen.


	3. Vulnerable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the three little words that Mulder says to Scully in his hospital bed after being rescued from the Queen Anne as it re-appeared in the Bermuda Triangle...and the strange connection that Scully starts to feel to a memory that Scully couldn't possibly have.
> 
> A lot of Post Triangle – Please note, for the sake of sanity, we are calling the rescue date Friday so that he wouldn’t be returning to work in any capacity from observation until Monday morning. If someone has actual dates from that ep, just let me know because I searched the episode multiple times and couldn’t find dates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.”   
> – Brene Brown
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer: Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, and Assistant Director Skinner belong respectively to Chris Carter, FOX Productions, and TenThirteen Productions. All other characters are original and any likeness or named similarities to any real-life persons are purely coincidental (unless, well, you’ve been told, then you should’ve expected such things and shouldn’t get upset over anything that happens to them, respectively)

 

_Vulnerability is scary, but pure._

_In it you can find bravery._

-Raquel Franco

 

 

1:30 AM

Outside Mulder’s Apartment Complex

 

                The rain had been falling for an hour, in a steady, relentless downpour with a chilly wind that sent the precipitation nearly in a sideways direction that stung the skin. Scully had barely slept for the fourth night running, awoken by another repeat dream that left her sweating and emotionally exhausted as she tore back the covers, clumsily wiggled into some clothes, and dragged herself to the car. She drove, she didn’t think about where she was going, and the path to Mulder’s apartment building and stood in the heavy downpour, absent more than her jogging jacket, for at least ten minutes until the realization hit that she was truly standing there. She didn’t know if he would turn her away but, in his position, she wouldn’t have blamed him if he ended up telling her to go to hell after the last words that she had articulated to him were “Mulder, go fuck yourself”. It wasn’t her most eloquent of moments nor was it the most kind of responses in consideration to the argument that had finally spilled out into the parking garage, but she couldn’t take it anymore. Standing in the rain at his apartment building wasn’t any better, though, as she looked up at the doorway and seriously considered turning around to simply retreat but ignoring her feelings didn’t seem like an option anymore.

                She started up the large, stone steps into the building, thinking about each passing night without more than an hour or two of sleep before inhaling another dream that left her smelling and even inhaling the remnants of salty air, feeling the unruly caress of the ocean underneath of the decking beneath her feet, and tasting Mulder’s eager lips against her own as though they were always meant to be there. It wasn’t the actual kiss that made it haunting, it was that it was a recollection that didn’t belong to her and she couldn’t get it out of her head. It was under her skin, burrowed in the places that Mulder had set up camp and she was more vulnerable to his gazes than she ever had been, simply powerless to the half thought that he wanted her even a fraction as much as she wanted him. Yet, here she stood, nearly denying it all as per usual and drinking that cocktail of pure frozen Tundra to restore a semblance of the exterior that once was.

                She had to protect herself from the potential of a letdown that seemed all too real.

                “Don’t be a chicken shit—be honest and hold in the tears this time,” Scully stood in the elevator, dripping wet while she spoke her words out loud like a mantra, the defenses running high. “You’re vulnerable enough without crying and he needs to hear it…all of it.”

                Her heart was already beating fast and loud, up in her throat, as she left the elevator and took those steps toward Mulder’s door, the anxiousness hitting her like a runaway semi-truck on a steep downgrade. She could see the 42 from far away and then the sound of low, melodramatic 80s rock became a presence in her ears as she neared the doorframe, the melody passing through the gap under the door just enough to hear it. Mulder wasn’t typically the listen to music late at night type but rather the leave the TV on with a random infomercial or an obscure porn muted kind of guy. Scully hesitated, struggling to hear the words but couldn’t quite make it out as the rain on the window was drowning out the subtlety of the voices on the stereo. It was now, or never, and even if she resembled a drowned rat rather than a woman capable of having a conversation, she willed herself to lift her hand, knocking at the door. It was a few, solitary knocks but it was enough to get his attention as she heard him cussing pretty loudly followed by the thud of his knees as they smacked against the floor.

                He must’ve rolled onto the floor from her startling him. 

                Her conclusion was pretty close to the truth as he instinctively jolted to a seated position, the rain streaking down the window casting a strange, but equally alluring, bright light across the room that added to the mild shock of hearing the knocks at the door. He rolled onto the floor, hitting it a little harder than he intended, that triggered a series expletives that were loud and in a solid string before he pulled himself to a standing position. He wasn’t in the mood for company and the look on his face told a story as he wiped the sleep from his eyes, dragging his feet toward the door. He didn’t even glance through the peep hole, simply unlocked the door and yanked it open almost expecting to see one of the Gunmen standing there to bother him about not answering his phone earlier. He couldn’t have been more wrong as he came face to face with Scully as she was creating a puddle from the rain on the floor, her clothes soaked clear through to her skin.

                “Scully…” He didn’t want to admit it but she was beautiful even though he could tell that she had been locking her jaw and gritting her teeth without even thinking about it.

                Scully was shivering, the look in her eyes a little far away as she felt the rain water dripping down her face, mocking tears and ruining the façade that she had been carefully constructing. “I almost didn’t come here…I really didn’t know if you’d be ok with me showing up here after what happened earlier today but I couldn’t let that be the way we left things until the next time the sun was in the sky.”

                “You’re soaking wet and spouting prose at my door, Scully,” Mulder wanted his Scully back, but she wasn’t there yet, in spite of the softer tone in her voice and the gentler demeanor. “What’s wrong?”

                “I don’t know how else to say it so I’m just going to blurt it out even though you’re not going to understand it,” Scully took a deep breath, standing in his doorway, feeling even more awkward than she could’ve imagined it would be. “I kissed Skinner.”

                Mulder was angry but he buried it as he pressed his lips together, the heat gathering in his chest as he stared at her for longer than necessary, an ache forming in his limbs as crossed his arms in front of her, completely dumbfounded. “Congratulations?”

                “I prepared myself for you not understanding what it meant and I need you to realize that it isn’t what you think,” Scully resisted the unfathomable yearning to cry as she bit down nearly hard enough on her bottom lip to make herself bleed, gathering the words as she looked up at him. “I clawed my way through the FBI trying to find any shred of information that would lead me to finding you, even to the point of threatening Spender’s life…when I got the information from Skinner, all I could picture was you, being found before something bad happened.”

                He knew it wasn’t supposed to be hilarious but the incredulous laugh left his lips as he ushered her in, not wanting the neighbors to hear all of this. “Scully, I think you need to sit down and try to reformulate that entire statement because I’m pretty sure that you just said that you pictured me when you kissed Skinner…and I really don’t know how I feel about that or if I’m comfortable with it.”

                Scully’s shoulder’s slumped as she realized how crazy the comment sounded as she walked into the apartment, sitting on the edge of the couch, the sogginess of her pants lightly squeaking against the cushion. “Mulder, as gross as this sounds, it was like I was locking lips with my brother—I felt nothing.”

                “Given what you just said, that’s not really helping the situation in the slightest, Scully, stop making it worse,” Mulder pushed the door shut, locking it all over again as he could suddenly hear her sobbing gently below the music that had started to wind down on some sappy Depeche Mode song.

                Seeing her cry was worse than actually being the cause of making her cry and the notion that he had done just that was sending a wave of guilt through him above the absolute frustration, anger, and even bitterness that was still floating around within his gut. He wanted to shake her but her physical state was the tip of the iceberg as he saw her take a deep breath, inhaling a fit of tears that she had been holding in. She looked even more fragile with drenched hair and clothing as he hovered, unsure of his own actions, wishing he could reach out to help her. He hated that her defense mechanism was so easy to predict yet so difficult to handle as she would stop at nothing to hide every bit of her feelings from him until it was far too late to fix the mess that they both had created. In some ways, they were enabling each other’s bad behavior by allowing the other to walk away so easily with zero resolution.

                “Why are you really here, Scully, because I really need to believe that it wasn’t just to rub my nose in not only being left hanging but waiting almost four days to know that you got a little too close to Skinner while I was lost in the Bermuda Triangle?” Mulder pressed his back against the doorway that separated his entry and kitchen from the living room, watching her agonize silently.

                Scully couldn’t look him in the eye but she felt the words flooding up into her consciousness as she swallowed her pride enough to say it out loud to him. “I didn’t leave you hanging on purpose. You were talking about me being there on that ship with you and some crazy mission you created for yourself along the way so when you said that you loved me, I froze. I didn’t believe that you really meant it because of the head injury.”

                Mulder’s anger had been well-harnessed until those words left her lips as he startled her by aggressively placing both of his hands against the back of his couch, causing her to slide all the way back against the cushions as he stared her down. “Are you fucking for real right now? Since when have I ever said anything to you, even with a head injury that I didn’t mean, that wasn’t 100% true and factual? When have I ever taken anything I’ve ever said back after an injury?”

                “Mulder, I—” Scully started to speak.

                “No, I’m not finished. You avoided me to the point that you didn’t even come back to see me after I said what I said. Were you that afraid that I’d start mentioning it again? Or was it more of a concern that you’d have to take down that precious armor that you’ve constructed for yourself?” The words were effortless as he cut her off and watched the tears fall as she looked up at him, wide eyed and taken aback by his words.

                It was as though the stereo knew that she was hanging on by a thread as the song transitioned to “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac. It was just the right amount if a distraction that both of them were momentarily taken in by the words that seem to punctuate the situation so well. Mulder closed his eyes for a long moment as the words sunk in ‘and if, you don’t love me now, you will never love me again’, striking a chord that had him swallowing hard as he renewed that gaze at the woman that had him beyond incensed. He couldn’t help it, though, as he knew that the pure passion makes one do some incredibly boneheaded things. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, though, with a flip of that same coin, she felt just as much as he did…she was just ducking it as usual.

                “Here’s the most fucked up part of the entire situation. In spite of all the incredibly fucked up things you’ve managed to do to me and say to me whether they were intentional or not, here I stand, with the leftovers of a mother fucking shiner, still just as crazy about you as ever,” Mulder’s voice was nearly as shaky as Scully’s shoulders as she looked into his eyes, wishing she hadn’t done this to him. “Either I’m in love with you or I’m God damn retarded, Scully.”

                Her head was instantly swimming over the concept of being wholly aware of Mulder being in love with her, the thoughts practically developing a flight pattern in her brain over mapping exactly how it could have happened in the first place. Deserving someone’s affections wasn’t even the problem; it was wrapping her brain around why it took so long to feel it in her soul for a long enough period of time to envelope herself in it like a blanket. It dawned on her as she strained her subconscious that being unaware of Mulder’s feelings for her was likely, in part, over her own painstaking, conscious efforts to conceal her own heart’s desires that took place every time she looked at him. She had wanted him for so long and here she was, standing on the edge of revealing the part of herself that had been kept hidden like an unspoken secret in the darkest places of her heart.

                He was never meant to be her dirty little secret and he had become exactly that.

                “Can’t be any worse than fighting a bout of insomnia that was undoubtedly induced by dreams about events and occurrences that you haven’t even felt or experienced before, complicating the already high, unstable level of feelings that were already swirling around in your very sleep deprived brain,” Scully was afraid to touch him but she was close enough to feel his breath on her and watch every visible muscle twitch in detail, that same taste of his lips coming back to her, as if she needed the reminder.

                Mulder wrinkled his eyebrows at her as he took note of the excess fidgeting over the last part of that lengthy comment, purposely adjusting his stance to the point that his arms rubbed against her shoulders with every little move. “Wait, wait, wait, wait just one fucking second.”

                Scully swallowed hard, her lack of composure becoming more of an issue as she struggled to maintain eye contact with him, diffident of whether or not he was still angry with her as she only felt the most pensive of stares in return. “Mulder, I left the hospital afraid to admit to you what I already know and what I already felt in my heart. I have stonewalled myself for a long time, even when you opened yourself up to me. When I went to sleep that night I had dreams about an experience that wasn’t my own…but it was me and it was you. I can’t explain it without sounding crazy.”

                “Who do you think you’re talking to, though, Scully?” He had already referenced the Bureau’s nickname for him as his left hand slid to her left elbow, triggering the sequence in her head as she could see him holding her again, standing in front of her on the deck.

                Scully blinked, the mumbling already starting as she glanced at her lap for a moment to gather the words, not wanting to elucidate any further. “I felt it, but I couldn’t have really felt it…I wasn’t fucking there. It wasn’t real; it was just a dream, Mulder, wasn’t it?”

                “Felt what?” Mulder was intrigued and befuddled in the same breath, the mumbling coming from a place that had her seeking out her own answers, the lightest of his own skin contact seemingly making it worse for her as she jumped a little.

                “I could smell the salt in the air, the sweat on your skin, felt the adrenaline rush going through my veins, Mulder, what the fuck is wrong with me?” Scully looked up at him, goosebumps going down her back as she noted the left hand against her elbow and the right hand around her wrist, shaking her head with instinct. “It didn’t happen.”

                The dots began to connect for Mulder as he realized that she had been having dreams about the Queen Anne and about being there with him, but beyond that he wasn’t entirely sure where she was going with this as he let go of her wrist. “Scully, at the hospital, I told you that you were there…maybe you just took those bits and pieces, sleeplessness took over?”

                “Are you crazy?” Scully mimicked the better dressed self, right down to the tone of voice as she left him speechless, unsure of his own actions, cementing it with his own remark. “So if we never meet again…”

                She couldn’t have known about that detail of what he had experienced on that ship. It had been closely guarded within him. He never told her about it but here she was, reciting words spoken to him and his own comments that preceded an action that changed the game. The action lead, fatefully, to his relief of making it home to the woman sitting in front of him, who, by all accounts, was a little terrified over the recollection of something that had left him with a completely different set of reactions. He wanted it to be her—he needed it to be—but the reality is that he came home to a life that hadn’t changed.

                Or so he thought?

                “Scully…” Mulder grappled with every little emotion as he watched her tears falling down her cheeks, knowing that she knew the series of events that came to pass before she pulled him from the water even if nothing made sense.

                “I can still feel you,” Scully’s right hand was up by her mouth, the white flag waving as her shoulders softened and she pulled her knees together a little tighter, putting distance between her back and the couch.

                “Jesus…” Mulder didn’t have to feel the vibration in her voice to know that it meant everything to say it as his eyes dropped, staring at her fingers as she twiddled them in her lap. “Scully think carefully about what you are saying because I don’t think I can just forget that you said it.”

                “I can still taste you,” Scully made eye contact with him again, her voice dropping to nothing more than a whisper, the pleading becoming more apparent as she searched his eyes, hoping that he fully understood what she meant.

                Mulder was silent as the melody in the background was doing more than setting a tone for their emotionally driven fork in the road. She had been the light at the end of the tunnel for so long and that light nearly went out for a fleeting moment only to be switched back into the on position as he heard her take in a nervous breath, the convulsion sending a shudder through his knees as they touched hers. She was doing it again, that little, anxiety driven habit of hers where her lips parted just enough that he could see her tongue against the corner of the inside of her bottom lip, her teeth finally pulling the same flesh between her bite as she realized he was examining her so closely. The silence was pretty much killing her as some of her wet hair dripped down into the curve of her collarbone, making her itch just enough to make her shift her weight awkwardly from one side of her ass to the other.

                Scully would’ve appreciated the letdown over the silence, the directness a little more effortless as she touched the front of his shirt, barely making a wave against the material. “Mulder, please say something.”

                Words weren’t willing to pass through his lips but he felt the impulse, the rush, from holding everything in for far too long as the light caught the tears streaking down her cheeks. This was more than enough and every moment lead up to an opportunity to right a wrong. Mulder’s right hand, that had been nearly stationary behind her against the couch, shifted to the back of her head, his fingers sliding through her wet hair while his left had a solid grip on her elbow, pulling her to her feet. Scully audibly gasped as the sudden movement had her standing on her tiptoes and bumping against his chest, his fingers rubbing her elbow through her wet clothes. The goosebumps were all over her and the shiver followed the sensation as it flowed across the surface of her skin as he held her, ignoring just how saturated her clothes actually were. There wasn’t any fear or worry in the motion aside from the physicality that he presented her with as she looked up at him, trembling within his half open embrace. Mulder was warm, strong, and every muscle well-toned as she felt him shudder in unison to her own nervous twitches, softening the line of her jaw as she held her breath in anticipation.

                Mulder’s lips were already parted as he guided her higher, her knees awkwardly rubbing against his legs as she kept a high pose on the tips of her toes, mere inches from her face. “Please, don’t hit me if I actually follow through with this, Scully.”

                “If?” Scully nearly knocked him onto his ass simply out of principle as the idea had her sighing without even thinking of how hopeless it came out.

                Mulder grinned, his nose against hers, tilting it back just a little to reclaim her sleepy little gaze as she pressed her lips together, his voice soft yet raw. “Did I have my hands like this or were they different?”

                Scully knew that part of this was a subtle form of revenge for ditching him at the hospital but she couldn’t have denied that she felt a pang of agony as Mulder’s lips were just barely out of reach as she sucked the corner of her lip into her mouth, looking up at him with expectant eyes. “Mulder…I know what you’re doing and it isn’t fair.”

                “Or were they more like this, Scully?” Mulder was pretty adept and quick with his hands as he peeled away the wet jogging jacket and tossed it on the floor, sliding his fingers along the newly uncovered, partially wet skin up to the sleeves at her shoulders.

                Denying that it felt good would do her zero favors as his hands rubbed along her shoulder blades and found her neck, tucking her hair behind her ears while he leaned down to continue to tease her. “Mmmmm…No, it was definitely the other way, Mulder.”

                Every little sound that she made was making it less and less possible to go on teasing her as he guided her arms around his neck, bending them at the elbow while allowing his lips to graze across hers. “How about this?’

                Scully groaned and held onto him, sliding her fingers through his hair as she looked up at him with hungry eyes, mouth open and aching. “Mulder, please, stop making me agonize over this, all I have is a memory that isn’t mine and I’d like a memory of my own to hold onto…”

                “See, here’s the thing, Scully…” Mulder’s intent was far from innocent and he was playing for keeps as he slid his hands along her back, coaxing staggered breaths from her until he gave her belt loops a firm tug, lifting her almost all of the way off of the floor, firmly in control. “I still don’t know quite where I stand with you and if all you want is a kiss, you might want to just be completely clear with me so I can put the rest of what has transcribed into my rearview so I can stop thinking about it.”

                Scully took another breath and closed her eyes, licking her lips simply out of instinct as she felt the heat rising in her cheeks and felt his thumbs against the small of her back, pulling her closer as she looked into his eyes with a little more clarity, caution tossed to the wind. “I ran from you and I’m here, frightened but ready as I’ll ever be, Mulder, but I don’t know that I’ve ever been so certain that holding it in merely made me take a moment to feel, to see…to know.”

                “Now who is inflicting the agonizing?” He nudged her nose with the tip of his own and pulled her hand close to his chest, rubbing the top of her hand as he felt her shaking.

                “I am always agonizing about how deeply the feeling runs through me that I feel every time I think about you,” Scully could feel her heart thudding against her chest wall as she bit down on her lip to gather her bearings. “I guess the unspoken way in which I have done things hasn’t been enough, Mulder, and I’m sorry for that, really, I am. I’m sorry for a lot of things.”

                Mulder kissed the tips of her fingers and glanced at her as she fidgeted in her boots, causing the oddest of wet squeaks just a little as she moved around in them. “I’m listening, Scully.”

                “I didn’t have any doubts of that,” Scully’s eyes were glassy, her cheeks bright pink, and both hands were shaking as she bit down on her bottom lip, gazing up at the man that she felt her heart beating a little faster for. “I don’t want to run from it anymore, Mulder, and I am giving every piece of me to you, no questions asked…just love me as much as I love you. I don’t have warning labels and I’m a mess but I’ve been in love with you for longer than I’d like to admit.”

                Mulder would’ve settled for an “I love you too” but he knew that Scully wasn’t the cut and dry type when it came to the expression of her feelings and emotions as he had a wry smile on his face, the most profound heat radiating from his skin as he laced his fingers with hers. Mulder didn’t want to wait any longer to bridge the remaining gap between them as he tilted his head to finally meet her mouth and redirected her head up just enough to push her lips apart. Scully had been having the same dream about his lips pressed against her own, his tongue sliding against her teeth, and the real thing was different in the most Earth-shattering of ways as she felt her knees give and her mouth open, inviting him in. She knew that comparison of such things was ludicrous but she liked the idea of knowing that he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was her flesh that he was touching, caressing in circles along her arms, back, and shoulders.

                There was nothing left to hide and no game of chance to play as his fingers slid back through her hair again, the electricity surging through the pair of them as the extra sensation inveigled a soft, yet throaty moan from her lips. The trepidations had all but evaporated, leaving behind the pure, raw desire that had been slowly amplifying since he had told her that he loved her, now fully spilling over as they stood in Mulder’s dim living room with the back of Scully’s legs pushed against the couch. Scully tilted into him and gripped his shoulders, feeling that pulsating warmth developing as she slid the tips of her fingers underneath of the material of his shirt, seeking out his skin. The sensation was exactly what they had needed as Mulder used his thumb to tilt her chin up, slipping his tongue along the curve of hers as the kiss deepened and their eyes remained closed.

                It was soft, but the passion underneath of it had them completely off kilter and breathing a little heavier as the gentle touches became almost groping as Mulder grasped both of Scully’s shoulders, massaging his way down her arms. The action did as intended, tugging more vocal moaning from her as she pressed her chest against him for balance while she reangled her mouth against his, biting down on his lip just a little bit. He groaned in response and gripped her elbows, her chest heaving against the fabric of his shirt, vibrating through to his skin like a bass beat with the volume on high. Mulder hadn’t intended on speeding down a path like a heat seeking missile but every little noise that she made was only fueling the push as he grasped both of her wrists and held them behind her back.

                Scully broke their kiss, moaning audibly as she tried to gather words again, her hands halfway pressed against the space just above her ass. “Mulder, I am sliding around in my boots…I need to take them off.”

                Mulder let out a little grunt as he made eye contact with her, adoring the swollen, perfectly bitten lips that were still trembling before him as he let go of her wrists. “This could become very addictive, Scully...”

                “What’s that?” Scully smirked as she pulled her pantleg up on the left side and unzipped her boot, carefully sliding out of it, the sock inside still soaked almost all the way to the ankle. “Oh shit…those are wet as well.”

                “Your socks? Well, take them off, then,” Mulder glanced down at her as she stayed bent down, the delicate little sock clearly wet as she started to tug it off. “Kissing you could become addictive.”

                Scully had her tongue between her lips, perched in the corner just a little as she freed her left foot and angled toward the right but immediately lost her balance, falling backwards onto the floor, the laughter leaving her mouth as she hit the floor. “That was…not graceful.”

                “Oh my God, are you ok?” Mulder didn’t really have much time to react as he barely had an opportunity to touch her arm as she flopped backwards, the smallest of thuds from her landing on his throw rug between the couch and the coffee table.

                Scully didn’t move as the laughter rippled through her while she looked up at him from a horizontal position on the floor, one foot completely bare, the other not. “Just injured my pride.”

                Mulder knelt down and gathered her leg across his knee, pulling her boot and sock off while causing her laughter to soften to near silence as she gazed at him. “Is that better, Scully?”

                “Significantly,” Scully inhaled sharply as he moved forward, shifting between her legs with both hands on either side of her arms, maneuvering over her. “Mulder…”

                Mulder hadn’t put any of his weight on her as he hovered over her, his biceps flexing as he leaned down, purposely avoiding her lips, kissing a trail along her jaw until his lips were close to her ear. “When you came here tonight did you expect that we’d end up here?”

                “With you on top of me on the floor?” Scully smirked, letting a hint of a giggle slip out as she moved her hands along the curve of his ribs toward his back. “I was just optimistic that you weren’t going to tell me to go fuck myself after I told you about the Skinner thing.”

                “This is a little unique even for me,” Mulder nibbled on her neck and adjusted his weight onto his left arm while the other urged her thigh up against his hip, putting a little bit of his weight against her until he heard her panting in his ear. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been thinking about getting you into a similar position on my couch even after the argument in the garage today, Scully.”

                “I really want to be shocked or a little offended but I’m not,” Scully dug her fingers into his shoulder blades as he gave her thigh a firm squeeze, his mouth half devouring her neck as she nearly yanked him down completely onto her. “Oh, my God.”

                The hunger for one another was deep but the inclination for intimacy was beyond the reaches of a simple emotional outpouring as the heat was emanating from both of them. Mulder’s mouth found hers after she lifted both of her thighs just a little higher on his hips, pulling him a little closer, dragging her fingers along his sides. He vocalized as his lips met hers, hungrily pushing them apart with his bottom lip and the tip of his tongue until he felt her return the same advances, the warmth inviting and ready. They had spent so long looking for a way to avoid one another that the moment had finally arrived to feel and neither of them could have possibly anticipated the level of intensity that lay dormant as they fell into each other with an open embrace. It had gone to another level in a heartbeat as Mulder cradled the back of Scully’s head, craning her neck just enough to gain a more intense angle on his kiss, both driven completely wild by the not-so-subtle noises that the other had been making. Their hearts were beating a little faster as the makeout session on the floor became a little less soft, the sounds of moans into one another’s mouths had become more fevered, louder, along with the hip thrusts that Mulder could no longer control despite the fact that they were both fully dressed.

                The phone ringing made both of them jump just a little bit as Mulder lifted away his mouth, looking up at the phone on the edge of the desk. “What in the fuck?”

                “Let the machine get it,” Scully nipped at his neck, arching her back into him as she looked up at him, her eyes barely open, not wanting to stop.

                “Afraid it’s your boyfriend Skinner calling?” Mulder smirked as she was within a breath from reclaiming his lips on her own.

                Scully rolled her eyes and set her head back against the floor, raising her eyebrow at him as she stared up at him. “That might’ve been really funny if that were my phone and not your phone, Mulder.”

                “Should’ve thought one through just a little more, huh?” Mulder could hear his own voice doing the poorly constructed greeting as he lavished Scully’s neck with little, tease level kisses, inciting heat with every little move he made while lifting her back off the floor, nibbling on her earlobe.

                Scully dragged her fingers up Mulder’s shoulders, redirecting his mouth toward hers. “I’ll let it slide this time, just come back to me.”

                The standard, basic beep picked up on the answering machine after his recorded greeting and Mulder half expected to hear some random, embarrassing late night advertisement for one of the 900 numbers that once held his patronage, once upon a time but he couldn’t have been more wrong as the sound from the other end started in. What they both heard was a little more shocking but brought back a reminder as he could hear the multiple male voices arguing before the actual speaking, his eyes rolling as he was locking lips with Scully. The voices were the dominos tipping over, knocking over a carefully constructed display along with a chorus of nails down the chalk board as the heavy petting, kisses, and panting could no longer drown it out.

                “Mulder, I know you’re there, you were supposed to call us back earlier and you’ve been ducking our phone call for going on five hours. Come on, drag yourself off the couch and pick up,” Frohike’s voice had them both turning their heads toward the machine, craning awkwardly as they both temporarily resembled the deer in the headlights.

                “Is he picking up?” Langly’s voice was distant but prominent, causing Mulder to drop his head against the hollow of Scully’s neck, sighing deeply.

                “You’ve GOT to be kidding me,” Mulder’s voice was muffled against Scully’s skin as he lifted his head and looked her in the eye. “I forgot to call them back.”

                “It’s after two in the morning, maybe he’s asleep—” Byers was the voice of reason but he was often met with a resounding series of “shut ups” from Frohike, who had control of the receiver.

                “If you don’t pick up your phone, you’re going to force our hand to come over there to drag yourself out of whatever miserable hole you’ve sunk into,” Frohike tried way too hard to be the concerned parent but the diatribe sent both Mulder and Scully into a fit of laughter as they stayed in their horizontal positioning on the floor.

                “I think he’s talking about you, Scully,” Mulder didn’t wait for her to respond as he made the ballsy little comment, nibbling on her bottom lip in hopes of drowning out the Gunmen as they continued to argue over his answering machine.

                “Maybe we should call Scully and see if she’s seen him,” Langly’s suggestion made them separate their lips with a swiftness that made a light popping noise as Mulder put a little distance between himself and Scully, knowing that they completely would try to call her.

                “You call her line and I’ll keep shouting into this porn addicted, forgetful mother fucker’s answering machine,” Frohike’s words sent Scully into a full fit of laughter as Mulder reached for the receiver, deftly stopping the recording device in the process.

                “I could’ve been in the shower or sleeping, Frohike, Jesus,” Mulder put his hand over Scully’s mouth as she failed to hold in another laugh, his eyes widening as she tried to stagger her breaths underneath of him.

                He was appreciative of her discretion even though he could tell that she was halfway amused by the prospect of fighting back her own laughter while he was on the phone. She was a little bit of a devil when she wanted to be and he knew it. It was all part of her charm as much as it was a vice that could get them both into so much trouble.

                Frohike called to Langly and Byers as he was more amused by how frazzled Mulder sounded than anything. “Hey, guys, he picked up…You were going to meet us earlier and now you’re ignoring phone calls, what else did you expect?”

                “I forget things sometimes—I have a head injury I’m recovering from,” Mulder smirked as he looked down at Scully, who mouthed ‘you’re full of shit’ at him.

                It seemed as though they were in the clear until the jacket that Mulder had peeled off of Scully earlier that was in a little heap on the floor near her shoes started to jingle unceremoniously. Scully’s eyes widened as Mulder held the phone to his ear, the ringing distinctive and strikingly loud as neither of them moved to address it. They both had the thought running through their head that they had been figured out before even having sex with one another, a mild irony that wasn’t easily shaken as Mulder bumped his elbow on the edge of the couch. This was worse than being busted by your parents as a teenager and they both knew it.

                “Mulder, what is that?” Frohike could hear the ringing in the background and genuinely didn’t even put two and two together as Langly was still dialing Scully’s cell.

                “I had a timer set earlier—it’s going off,” Mulder really couldn’t concentrate and the lies weren’t exactly solid nor was Scully assisting in the endeavor as she bit down on the corner of her lip, purposely teasing him from her completely horizontal position.

                Langly and Byers were arguing about the phone and Langly’s voice was just louder than Byers as he let out a “If you don’t shut up I won’t be able to hear the voicemail when it picks up since it’s still ringing.”

                “Hey, Blondie, are you still calling Scully?” Frohike’s lightbulb flickered on as he went back to chastising Mulder without even hesitating. “Mulder, you’re unbelievable and you’ve been lying since you picked up the phone. Is that her phone ringing in the background?”

                “Scully…is really busy, Frohike,” Mulder was almost laughing as he could no longer take the teasing from her as he ran his fingers along the hem of her shirt, pushing it up until he was tickling her stomach.

                “You say it to him like that and he’s only going to ask more questions, Mulder,” Scully’s voice was unnecessarily raspy and teetering on the edge of a giggle as she reached for Mulder’s wrist, holding his hand still as it was bordering on making her squirm.

                Frohike was unusually silent for a long moment and Mulder could almost see the smoke circles through the phone before he said it out loud. “You fucking dog. No wonder you didn’t show up tonight.”

                “Hang up the phone,” Scully was giving Frohike ample material to grill Mulder later over but she didn’t seem to care as she wiggled her finger at him, gesturing him closer, a smile across her lips as she was caught somewhere between liking the tease and wanting more of him.

                The comment nearly gave Mulder whiplash as his eyes met hers after lingering over her mouth, his thumb sliding across the same spot that her teeth had been biting just a moment ago and nearly leaped out of his skin as she ran her tongue along the print of his thumb. “Hey, Frohike…I’ll talk to you later, I have something I really need to finish.”

                “You bastard, you can’t leave it like that, I want all the juicy details,” Frohike was determined but Byers and Langly were on the same page as they were practically the Wonder Twins in the background shouting ‘hang up the phone, you invasive, perverted midget’ at him in unison.

                Mulder aimed the phone at Scully just a little bit and watched as she craned her neck up just a little, reading her thumb over the talk button to hang it up. “Goodnight, Frohike.”

                Scully pushed the button, hanging up the button despite the muddled sounds of Frohike in the distance, returning the room to a semblance of silence aside from their heavy breathing and her little laughs. Mulder put the phone on the desk chair and looked down at Scully as her laughter quelled, her arms gliding around him, pulling him into her embrace. They gazed at one another for a long moment as the music played and the rain fell in the background before moving back into the shelter of each other’s kiss, uncertain of another chance at a moment quite like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be another chapter – I haven’t decided if it’s the last or if there will be a 5th to follow but bear with me. 
> 
> Quotes by:   
> Brene Brown  
> Raquel Franco
> 
> References Made:  
> “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac  
> Depeche Mode
> 
> As always, thank you to miss Monika for reading portions for clarity (and to keep me sane). To Elaine (you are a gem), thank you for making me giggle and being one of the first people to successfully make me cry with a review on a fic.


	4. Take The Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the three little words that Mulder says to Scully in his hospital bed after being rescued from the Queen Anne as it re-appeared in the Bermuda Triangle...and the strange connection that Scully starts to feel to a memory that Scully couldn't possibly have.
> 
> There be steaminess here
> 
> Post Triangle – Please note, for the sake of sanity, we are calling the rescue date Friday so that he wouldn’t be returning to work in any capacity from observation until Monday morning. If someone has actual dates from that ep, just let me know because I searched the episode multiple times and couldn’t find dates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, and Assistant Director Skinner belong respectively to Chris Carter, FOX Productions, and TenThirteen Productions. All other characters are original and any likeness or named similarities to any real-life persons are purely coincidental (unless, well, you’ve been told, then you should’ve expected such things and shouldn’t get upset over anything that happens to them, respectively)
> 
> This is shorter than expected but it's only a single part rather than multiples like previous chapters 
> 
> Love you guys, please leave comments or kudos if you so choose!

 

 

_She loved him_

_With a messy heart_

_He hugged her_

_With fragile bones_

_She touched him_

_With scarred hands_

_He kissed her_

_With bruised lips_

_They whispered_

_All their flaws_

_And inhaled_

_The storm_

_Together_

-Randy Mascorro

 

 

                The ache had been, at least, momentarily subsided as the rather fascinating turn of events went the way of teenage level heavy petting on the floor of Mulder’s apartment. They had been driven, almost compulsively, toward an end that would easily erase all ability to ever forget this night even if that was on their mind. Mulder’s hands were all over her, groping at skin that was both hidden and exposed, fingers dotting along the hem of her shirt, pushing it higher, wanting more of her as his mouth kept her moaning into his mouth, her tongue right against his like they had been experiencing one another for years. They knew each other, nearly cover to cover, but the contents of the book hadn’t been fully absorbed, felt, touched, or pushed to an edge and finished.

                Scully was covered in goosebumps and the sweat was mixing with the sensation of a heavy chill from her soaking wet clothing that was clinging to her body, reminding her mercilessly that they were still there along with the grinding of Mulder’s pelvis against hers. The discomfort was slowly invading the fantastic jolt of energy running through her every inch of her as the heat was comingling with the cold chills, making the already hot parts of her body that much more sizzling as the friction only continued. She winced through the kiss, digging her fingers a little harder into his skin, burying the need to cry out audibly but she knew she wanted more in spite of herself, in spite of the nagging ache from her inseam rubbing uncomfortably against her skin. She needed to fix the problem before it became worse.

                The separation caused the most guttural of moans from both of them but Scully was panting, eyes closed and lips trembling. “Mulder, I really hate to kill the mood—but I’m freezing, my inseam is digging into my legs and my jeans aren’t getting any drier.”

                “I think I have a solution for that,” Mulder reluctantly peeled himself away, the absence of her body heat comingling so nicely with his own was almost immediate as he stood and went to the door that lead to the never used bedroom. “You stay right there.”

                Scully sat up and put her hand over her mouth, covering a laugh as she saw the discarded boots and socks near her soaked jogging jacket. “I can’t believe it’s still raining, Mulder…you’d think it would have slowed down by now.”

                “Weather man knew you were coming over and just figured that soaked to the bone is just a good look for you,” Mulder’s voice was a little muffled from behind the door, the sounds of boxes being bumped into preceding a slightly loud thud. “Fuck, this room needs a little TLC…please don’t come in here.”

                “I know you’re referencing one too many terrible instances of me looking like a drowned rat but I’ll accept the sentiment this one time, Mulder,” Scully held back a laugh, watching the light dancing on the wall as the cussing followed the crashing of full, hoarder level boxes in the bedroom where Mulder haphazardly kept some of his belongings and other miscellaneous stuff. “Mulder, you know your only bathroom is beyond those doors and I’ve been in there numerous times…”

                “Well, shit, I tried to shield you from the minefield, anyway…It’s like a bomb went off in there,” Mulder walked back out and pulled the door shut, carrying a pair of New York Yankees sweatpants and a non-descript gray t-shirt that he must’ve had at least a dozen of. “These are at least dry…sorry I don’t keep any women’s underwear in my place. Didn’t think you’d ever be showing up soaked from head to toe.”

                “I appreciate it, but I know you just don’t want me to see the abundance of porn mags and bootlegged video tapes all over the floor that you just knocked over,” Scully gathered the dry clothes and set them on the couch, her lip between her teeth as she realized how heavy the pants actually were as she started to stand. “This is going to be really fucking awkward.”

                “I did no such thing this time,” Mulder had turned around, giving her privacy out of instinct and chivalry even though the idea of sneaking a peak had him amused enough to smirk in spite of himself. “What’s going to be awkward? I’m not looking…on my best behavior.”

                “As much as I appreciate that very noble gesture, Mulder,” Scully sighed, her hand yanking on her zipper after barely busting the button loose. “I think…I need your help.”

                “Are they stuck?” Mulder turned around as she was standing on the bottom of her pantlegs, awkwardly posed with her toes almost all of the way hidden.

                Scully nodded, and let go of the top of her pants, shrugging both of her shoulders as she made it pretty clear that they weren’t moving on their own. “Completely, fucking, stuck. Normally, they would be down around my knees if I had done that…they aren’t that tight. The water made them stick straight to my skin and they feel like they weigh a ton.”

                “Don’t be mad at me when I say this, you’re fucking cute standing here like this,” Mulder tilted his head to the side and watched her roll her eyes.

                “Mulder, come on, don’t, I just want the fucking pants off,” Scully crossed her arms, letting the fly of her jeans fall open, the top of her panties peeking out underneath of her shirt.

                “I hadn’t noticed that at all, Scully,” Mulder moved a little closer, watching the discomfort rise as he looked her in the eye.

                “Don’t be a smartass,” Scully knew he was amused by the situation but she was uncomfortable and the pressure still against her crotch wasn’t helping matters as she fidgeted just a little. “Just help so I can be dry and warm?”

                “Ok, ok, ok, I will,” Mulder wouldn’t have admitted it to her but he was mildly petrified of undressing her and touching her without her clothing but he knelt in front of her regardless and looked up at her. “You’re going to need to unclench those thighs, Scully…or you’ll make this significantly more difficult than either of us need it to be.”

                “Sure, it’s easy for you to say when you’re the guy about to look at me in my underwear,” Scully was trembling as she forced herself to allow her stance to soften enough that there was a little bit of a gap between her thighs. “How’s that?”

                “Better, now hold still or I’ll end up embarrassing you more than you already are,” Mulder was giving her inseam the gentlest of tugs with both hands to get her pants to loosen from the almost vacuum seal it had developed against her skin. “Jesus, did you lay down out there and just let it drench you? You’re literally fully saturated from the top to the bottom.”

                “It was going sideways before I even got into my car and that really fucking tickles, Mulder!” Scully’s knees knocked together as she tapped him on the top of the fingers, purposely pushing them away from her extremely hot crotch, hoping he wasn’t noticing that she damn near on fire. “You’re just so pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”

                “It would be an awfully big lie if I said I wasn’t thoroughly enjoying the look on your face, at the very least,” Mulder had his eyes locked on hers as he freed her ass from the jeans and had them almost halfway down. “Go ahead and keep up with the sassy whining some more, though, so I’ll just say to hell with it and look down, make that blush even brighter and probably get slapped for my troubles.”

                “I don’t know about the slapping part, Mulder,” Scully swallowed hard as the air in the apartment was making her very aware of just how exposed she had become as her lilac colored panties did little to protect her from the cool breeze as she developed a trail of goosebumps down the backs of her legs. “What do you mean by that comment? The look on my face…”

                “That completely unsure of yourself look that you get when you are being put into an awkward position and you don’t know if you should like it, be stoic, or run for the door,” Mulder maneuvered the jeans beyond her calves and accidentally bumped his forearm against her bare skin, coaxing a soft, pitchy gasp from her. “Although, running for the door might be a little problematic for you right about now.”

                Scully held in a breath for a moment as the heat from his skin had the colder part of her legs developing a rather healthy burst of excess warmth within an instant as she looked down at him. “So, would it be the exact same look that you’re giving me right now?”

                Mulder had been around her for too long and his expressions, much like hers, were well written on most days and they had abandoned their usual poker faces as Mulder pulled her ankle free, gathering the wet jeans from the floor. “I have plenty of reason to be unsure of myself and one of those reasons is standing without her pants on with goosebumps all over, shaking like a leaf even though she’s trying so desperately not to.”

                Scully watched him as he gathered the wet socks and jacket along with her boots while she slowly maneuvered back to the floor, yanking the wet shirt up and over her head with a bit of force to free her skin from more wet garments. “Mulder, what are you doing?”

                “Going to drape your wet clothes over the chairs at the table,” Mulder wasn’t looking at her as he put the boots near the corner and started to drape each piece, fully expecting her to be changing into the shirt and sweats by the time he turned around. “If you want them to actually get dry, this might help speed that process along just a bit.”

                “Well, heads up, then,” Scully captured his attention and tossed the shirt toward him, covering his face in the process as he started to walk toward the living room.

                “Your aim certainly is spot on as always, Scully,” Mulder pulled the delicate fabric of her shirt away and put it across another chair, his eyes doing their clever best not to peek at her as he started to turn. “Doing everything you can to make me want to look at you, though, which isn’t much of a trick to utilize on me…”

                “Well, sometimes having decent aim is a fairly positive trait,” Scully bit down on her lip as she pulled the blanket from the couch and gathered it around her just as he turned all of the way toward her. “Who says I’m playing tricks, Mulder?”

                “I do…Cold?” Mulder couldn’t have been more oblivious to what she had just done as he smirked at her bundled up in the blanket that he tended to sleep under.

                “Very cold,” Scully nodded while he came down to her level, concealed carefully from the neck down as she kept the blanket wrapped around her body. “I’m mildly curious about something, though, Mulder.”

                Mulder shifted his weight and tossed the pillows onto the floor, crawling around with a certain level of cluelessness to her body language. “What are you curious about?”

                “If I hadn’t shown up here—would you have ended up coming to me or would you have left it alone entirely? Pretend like it didn’t happen like we usually do with awkward situations?” Scully had her head tilted to the side, buried underneath Mulder’s blanket.

                “That’s certainly an odd question, but, given my notoriousness for last minute, bad decision making, I actually think I would have just maybe not right away or if I had it would’ve been after a couple shots of liquid courage courtesy of Frohike?” Mulder wrinkled his nose as his hand gathered along what he thought was a section of the blanket but he held it up and it was the sweats and the shirt that she was certainly not wearing. “Scully, wait a second…you’re…”

                Scully came up to meet him, knees pushing the blanket down off of her shoulders just a little bit as she took the clothes from his grasp, setting them aside to wrap her arms around his neck. “Mulder, without a doubt, I’m very nervous, but I’m not unsure about where I am and the move that I just made without you fully being aware of it. I really hope that you’re okay with an assertive maneuver because I’ve been waiting for you to do it first and you didn’t.”

                Mulder was stunned and taken completely by surprise but Scully’s actions had certainly aroused more than simply curiosity as he pulled the top of the blanket down until it met her waistline, exposing the sheer volume of skin and lilac undergarments to the air. “I don’t mind assertive, Scully, but now that I know where you stand…let me take the lead for a while?”

                “Then take the lead, Mulder,” Scully’s tone softened, her eyes sparkling with a need that he had never recognized but had always secretly craved.

                Scully bit down on her lip, the blush forming down her neck and along her chest as she felt his thumbs along her lower back, rubbing in a downward motion. They were drawn to one another with a magnetism that hadn’t been explored until now and neither knew quite what to expect as Mulder’s hand gripped the edge of the blanket and drew it away from Scully’s soft, more delicate frame. Her pristine, soft lilac colored, satin and lace matching underwear and bra did very little to conceal her figure from him, nor would she have wanted them to as she kept her eyes on his while his fingers gathered her closer. Neither one of them had really stopped to consider that taking the rake to the sand would completely change the way that they would function on more than just a physical level but they could feel it blossoming as their hearts were beating almost too fast. They were both vibrating with nervousness, the energy reaching a fever pitch as the air between them hovered, lips parting just enough to be more than an invitation.

                “Are you absolutely sure that this is what you want tonight?” Mulder’s voice was unusually nerve-wracked as his hands lingered along the center of her back, his middle finger hovering over the top of the bra closure, both hands shaking. “I’d wait until I needed the assistance of a walker, for you…you know that, right?”

                Scully hadn’t been more sure of herself in a very long time as the muddled heat and dampness between her legs was starting to become more apparent with every passing second, the timbre of her voice climbing. “I don’t think I would have skipped putting on the sweatpants and shirt if I wasn’t incredibly certain that this is exactly what I want, Mulder.”

                The words made everything in the room tilt on its axis as leading was so much more than taking control as Mulder guided her fingers along his midsection, silently inviting the evening of the playing field. Scully licked her lips and pulled the soft, gray tee shirt up and over his head, dragging her fingertips across his skin to the point that she could hear him audibly inhale. Her arms were still in the air just a little bit as they renewed gazes and mimicked the same soft, almost dreamy yet half hidden smiles as Mulder guided her arms around his neck and pulled her to him by way of her waistline. She pressed her chest against him, arching into the same level of fire that emanated from her core as she gathered her fingers through his hair and closed her eyes, humming into the open air. He could feel the torridity radiating off of her in that moment as he instinctively tilted his hips against her, angling his mouth down to meet hers, pushing her lips apart.

 _Please keep going, please keep going, please keep going._ They were both thinking in unison, minds wanting to scream it out as nothing else seemed to matter but the feeling of the other’s tongue in their mouth.

                The rain on the window had a certain raw purity with every little droplet that bounced against the panes of glass and ran down toward the ground below, heightening the already intense moment as the sounds of heavy breathing became melodic, rhythmic. Mulder’s hands were around Scully at the hips, gripping her almost aggressively as his tongue slid beyond her teeth, needing more of her as she held onto him, clinging to his shoulder blades. The cries were muted but evident as they collided into each other’s mouths as the top of that hill seemed so much closer than they realized, without even thinking about it. It was physical and they had leaned into it with a little more ferocity, slipping from one another’s lips, the moans becoming like added tenor to the music on the stereo. Mulder found himself lavishing a line of kisses and light nibbles down the curve of her jaw while her hands deftly tugged at the slack in his belt, throwing the remnants of caution to the wind the moment that the strip of leather touched the floor.

                There was nothing left to hold back.

                “What good deed did I do in this life to deserve you?” Mulder looked down at her as she dragged her fingernails down his back while she clasped his musculature and nipped at his chin, brushing her lips along his stubble.

                Scully looked up at him, the look in her eyes more determined, hungry as she popped the button free on his jeans. “That exact thought ran through my mind when you offered to help me…without taking a second glance when you could have, or touching me exactly where you wanted…you could’ve taken so many liberties and you didn’t…”

                “That second part did take a lot of self-control, Scully,” Mulder smirked over the sound of his own zipper being pulled down. “Getting pretty clever with that hand, aren’t you?”

                “Nothing clever, I just know you better than I know myself,” Scully pushed the top of his pants down beyond his hips, keeping her eyes locked on his.

                The words, while simple, were powerful and Mulder felt them reverberate through him like a bass drum beat as tilted her chin up to meet his lip, gathering her into another kiss while he pulled her closer. Scully arched her back just enough to emphasize the connection between them, spreading the energy between them like an electrical burst as, nibbling on his bottom lip between head turns while Mulder’s hand slid to the curve of her ass, giving her a rough squeeze. She gasped into his mouth and held onto his back for balance while he lead, guiding her legs around his hips until he felt her feet slip free of the blanket. Scully had been completely right about knowing him better than she knew herself but he also felt the same with her as his left hand steered her thighs around him, navigating her into a position that sent the control back to Mulder. Every little bit of her diffused waves of heat as his skin touched hers, his abdominal muscles twitching against her as he braced into her, lowering her onto the pillows.

                He only separated mouths from hers for a moment to feverishly kick off his pants, almost wildly kicking them toward the dining table where her wet clothes hung from the backs of chairs. She looked up at him from her nearly horizontal position with the pillow under her head and smirked as he had his tongue between his teeth, the grunts audible as he turned back toward her with a look of lust in his eyes. Scully beckoned him close as he crawled up to her, between her thighs until they crashed together with intent behind every touch, kiss, and enticement of friction as they melted into one another, a perfect chemical reaction. Mulder’s back flexed with each little movement of her fingers as she dragged them across the expanse of his skin, his warmth only increasing under the feel of her own. They would’ve gotten drunk off of it and they were already halfway there as Mulder’s fingers found the clasp of Scully’s bra, releasing it in a careful, gentle motion that left her breathless as she felt the last of her defenses dropping away.

                “Please…” Scully didn’t know exactly how to vocalize it as she could see her bra dangling on the ends of Mulder’s fingers as she slipped her arms free, exposing every bit of her vulnerability to him.

                Mulder had his eyes on Scully’s as he didn’t even flinch while tossing her bra off to the side, his biceps contracting as he adjusted his position just a little. “Please, what, Scully?”

                Her voice was strained as each breath came out as a labored moan, the tips of her fingers sliding along his chest, coaxing more goosebumps with every little move she made, looking up at him while her lips trembled. “Please…touch me…”

                “You certainly know how to make a guy go crazy, Scully,” Mulder had to close his eyes for a moment, the sound of her voice had him nearly leaping out of his boxers as the meaning of the words strummed him like a well-tuned guitar. “I mean, shit.”

                “Don’t go crazy, Mulder,” Scully angled her head up, found his mouth for another soft kiss while she tugged his fingers toward her, leading him to meet the soft, goosebump covered flesh of her breasts as she revived their gaze. “I need your hands on me…please.”

                Her assertiveness was on a whole different level of sexy as the boldness of her making him touch her set fire to the remaining self-control he had left, leaving it nothing more than dwindling ash as he drank in her perfectly milk and porcelain skin. They had flipped the figurative table over and tossed the switch on the explosives as their world slipped away, leaving two perfect pieces that desired nothing more than to fit together. Mulder licked her bottom lip and palmed the same breast, coaxing a healthy moan from her lips as she studied his face, her hands holding onto his sides just enough to invite a layer of goosebumps down his back. Scully wrapped her legs around him, converging her heat with his as she enticed him a little closer, fully enveloping her in an embrace as he snaked his arms around her and put more of his weight onto her with a slow, circular motion thrust. Scully was more than a little overcome by the pressure of an obvious erection pressing against her pelvis as she tilted her head back and groaned toward the ceiling, the sensations swirling around as her eyes rolled back. It wasn’t solely affecting Scully, as Mulder bit down on his bottom lip, quelling the onslaught of twitching from the heat transference.

                It certainly didn’t stop him from giving her another cruel, slow thrust, this time causing enough friction to remind both of them of the growing puddle that her panties had been hiding.

                “Jesus Christ,” Mulder had sweat down his forehead already and still had on his boxers but every muscle in his body was crying out as he looked down at her. “Scully…”

                “Mulder, don’t stop,” Scully sunk her fingers into his shoulders and elevated her thighs on his hips, unbridling the amorousness that had been hiding beneath the surface. “Please, keep going, don’t stop, please, don’t stop.”

                It was the compulsory change in their demeanor as Mulder kept a hand underneath of her back, caressing the space between her shoulders as he reconnected with her lips, ravaging her mouth all over again. They were fully engrossed in each other, abandoning gentleness and inviting animal instinct as Mulder’s hips left quite the impression on her while his hands gathered hers, pinning them above her head. Mulder’s control was teetering, tipping closer to becoming a runaway train with no brakes as he could feel every part of his body craving just a little more of her, wanting more of her skin against his in the worst way. Scully snaked both legs around him and came up to meet a thrust, doing everything she could to keep stoking the fire. Scully moaned into his mouth and reveled in the pure, raw physicality that they both were craving as each little move he made was shoving them a little closer to the ledge, readying that moment that nothing would be left between them.

                The knock at the door was unexpected, uninvited, and unpleasant as the sound sent a shiver down their spines in unison and forced a hush over the room. The delicious kiss broke with a ragged pop and they were tilting up, tangled in each other as they both stared toward the door. It took a moment for the shock of the first hollow sound against the door to wash over them before Mulder reached for the edge of the blanket to yank it toward them, more for her sake than his own. Scully held it close and covered her own mouth as Mulder’s hand accidentally brushed against a very aching nipple, the moan imminent as she trapped her own hand against his shoulder. He was immediately apologetic with a hand to her cheek, tucking her hair behind her ear as her forehead pressed against his skin, her breaths staggering.

                The second set of knocks followed but no one spoke or made a noise as Mulder winced at the absolute insanity of what was occurring and the dumb, terrible luck that was surrounding them all night long. He held his breath, hoping that they would just leave but the knocking only continued, creating a series of panicked breaths between them as they truly felt like teenagers about to be caught underneath the bleachers. They were too close to finally ravaging one another and it was as though everyone around them knew exactly how to stick a wrench in every attempt to get there.

                “Another graze like that and I’m going to go off prematurely,” Scully had a strong urge to clamp her thighs together but couldn’t as she felt everything starting to twitch while she whispered up at him.

                “Oh, shit, Scully, I am so sorry,” Mulder kept his voice low as Scully finally brought her head back up, the sweat shimmering on both of them in a thin layer. “…Christ, you’ve got to be kidding me. I swear to God it better not be Frohike.”

                “Mulder, it’s Skinner—are you up?” Skinner’s voice was muffled from the other side of the door and had both Mulder and Scully looking like the deer in the headlights, suddenly wishing that it had been Frohike instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, chapter 5 is already well underway and yes, I’m an asshole for this…
> 
> To Monika, as always, you have been an absolute GODSEND on this one because I can talk to you about every wild, crazy, stupid idea and you give me your honest opinion every time. This has been one of my more fun forays and I really hope you love it.
> 
> Quote by Randy Mascorro


	5. Hold Your Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the three little words that Mulder says to Scully in his hospital bed after being rescued from the Queen Anne as it re-appeared in the Bermuda Triangle...and the strange connection that Scully starts to feel to a memory that Scully couldn't possibly have.
> 
> Post Triangle – Please note, for the sake of sanity, we are calling the rescue date Friday so that he wouldn’t be returning to work in any capacity from observation until Monday morning. If someone has actual dates from that ep, just let me know because I searched the episode multiple times and couldn’t find dates.
> 
> The aftermath of the second interruption—and where all roads lead, however bumpy.
> 
> You don’t find love, it  
> finds you. It’s got a  
> little bit to do with  
> destiny, fate and  
> what’s written in the  
> stars.  
> – Anais Nin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***There be super smuts here***
> 
> Apologies for the colossally mean interruptus from the previous chapter – just keep going, it’s worth it.
> 
> Disclaimer: Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, and Assistant Director Skinner belong respectively to Chris Carter, FOX Productions, and TenThirteen Productions. All other characters are original and any likeness or named similarities to any real-life persons are purely coincidental (unless, well, you’ve been told, then you should’ve expected such things and shouldn’t get upset over anything that happens to them, respectively)

 

_I searched the darkest_

_corners of his soul_

_for the rarest type_

_of beauty, and accidentally_

_found pieces of myself_

_hidden in sacred places,_

_where the deepest secrets_

_of the heart reside._

-Christy Ann Martine

 

 

                “Mulder, it’s Skinner—are you up?”

                It wasn’t simply that they were being interrupted again, it was that it was the one man that had been at the center of a discussion drama under two hours earlier mixed with the unique position that they were now in on Mulder’s floor. Mulder shook his head again, the question rattling around like the most unpleasant of reality checks as he glanced at the pretty, bright red, pouty mouth that he had just been kissing the holy hell out of, the blood refusing to leave his extremities. The conversation wasn’t necessarily pleasant but Scully had ripped the Band-Aid off and confronted it with a swiftness, squashing it as best as she could before setting off to the precarious, scintillating position she was now desperately trying to hide. Neither one of them were exactly thrilled that he had decided to choose this night, this moment, to show up and push the wedge back between them, even if it were only a temporary, physical thing. Now, here they lay in one another’s arms, taking that last gasp of resistance away to move forward and fate’s most unjust and unkind sister was slapping them across the face, reminding them that they weren’t in control of everything or everyone, least of all their timing.

                They were lucky that they were even in control of their own faculties and volume that came from their lungs…that was at least one saving grace.

                 “In a sense,” Mulder didn’t say it with more than enough volume than to be heard by anyone other than Scully before completely turning toward the door, becoming considerably louder. “Yeah…just give me a second!”

                “Are you suddenly wishing that it was actually Frohike?” Scully slid the tee shirt on over her head and started to reach for the sweats but Mulder grabbed them first. “Mulder…”

                “Don’t start with me. I can’t answer the door in my boxers with an erection, Scully,” Mulder’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he slid his feet into the boxers and roughly pulled them up. “Just stay there…quietly.”

                Scully had the blanket around her and Mulder’s shirt pulled down past her thighs as Mulder was utilizing the loose fitting sweats to cover a visible erection, an endeavor that seemed a little bit in vain as he adjusted himself while he stumbled around in the living room. It was an awkward maneuver and the look on his face was priceless as he rolled his eyes once more before making his way toward the door. The theme of interruption was starting to piss him off and not just because of the terrible timing of it all but because it was twice now that someone had stopped him from the incredibly nice position he was in on top of Scully and he was so close to sliding away the last remnants of clothes when that fucking knock at the door crashed it all down like a bulldozer through the center of the room. They were so close and palpably ready, both now left feeling the rush of soreness in places that hadn’t ached in a very long time.

                He looked back at her as she ran her fingers through her hair, her lips slightly more bruised and swollen than his own, looking every bit as stunning, maybe even moreso, as she had the moment that she walked delicately into his life in the basement. It sent a shiver through him as the memory flashed through his head, recollecting how she looked, smelled, and the little smile that she wore after his diatribes that she didn’t believe a word of. It was the same kind of smile that he had just earned as he winked at her from across the room before he double checked himself at the door. This wasn’t ideal, he had decided as he did a second fidget in the sweats and wiped more of the sweat from his chest, the little curves of his musculature twitching with every moment he stood there with a pulsating erection being neglected and poorly ignored. He resisted the urge to shout some bullshit excuse through the door as he unlocked the deadbolt and chain, opening the door just enough to see a highly sleep deprived, disheveled Skinner standing outside his door, looking every bit as wore out as Scully had at work inflicting a wave of guilt along with the other prominent sensations swirling inside of him.

                “I didn’t wake you, did I?” Skinner had one of those far away glances that Mulder only saw when he was about to get into trouble or sick of their bullshit, the dark circles under his eyes evident along with a coffee stain on his shirt that definitely had gone through most of the day. “I did, didn’t I? Of course I did…It’s the middle of the night and I sound like a nutjob.”

                “You don’t sound like a nutjob but you look like someone drove a truck into you, dusted you off, and left you propped up on a park bench,” Mulder held onto the door and shifted his weight between each foot, hoping that the hard-on wasn’t completely noticeable. “It’s insomnia. I don’t get a whole lot of sleep, Skinner. What are you doing here?”

                “So I look exactly like I feel? That’s just fan-fucking-tastic. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Agent Scully all night and she hasn’t been answering her phone,” Skinner rubbed his temples and stared at the floor for a moment, the agitation increasing with every moment he spent at the door. “Have you heard from her? Seen her? Did she say anything to you earlier?”

                “You’ve been calling her all night? Really?” Mulder already knew why he was concerned as he shot a backwards glance as stealthily as he could in Scully’s direction, his eyebrow aimed toward the ceiling. “That’s interesting.”

_Guilty conscience is hitting you hard, Skinman._

                Mulder had a sharp inkling that he was beating himself up over the idea that maybe, just maybe, Scully had disappeared because she was grappling with the choice to confess what happened in the elevator. She had been pretty preoccupied even by normal standards and dealing with such a pivotal topic had been more than a little bit troublesome for her, Skinner must’ve known that, Mulder had to have guessed that by now along with the plethora of other issues floating around in that bald head of his as he watched his shoulder’s slump and eyes blink as though thoughts had taken over. No man really wants to be confronted with the idea that they’ve kissed a woman that another man is visibly, and clearly, in love with—and Skinner had guilty written right across his forehead in bold, red lettering. He was acting like he had just slaughtered every chicken in the hen house and left none to lay eggs.

                “Since at least seven or eight this evening—but she hasn’t answered any of my calls,” Skinner couldn’t have been even remotely clued in that the worry he was exhibiting was over something Mulder already knew about, his blood pressure unduly being elevated as a result. “I’m just worried and I can only assume that if she hasn’t spoken to you that she doesn’t intend on elucidating on to either of us.”

                Mulder knew that lying to him wasn’t exactly in the realm of possibility as he felt his bottom lip popping out just enough to be a distraction to at least himself. “You did call both of her phones, right? The home and the cell?”

                “I thought I did but maybe not—I dialed one too many times and if she was screening her calls, she would have called back by now. Her behavior has just been a little out of the ordinary lately and now you haven’t even heard from her,” Skinner looked at Mulder as he was on the border of rambling, furrowing his brow. “Mulder…you’ve been sweating.”

                Scully could hear everything and the last part was more than enough to usher in a series of laughs but she resisted, covering her mouth and sliding her knees up toward her chest as she continued to listen to them talk. Mulder could see her moving out of the corner of his eye and knew that she was positively tickled by the adequately unpleasant conversation that he was having with their former boss. He wasn’t the slightest bit amused at the idea of anyone discovering their intimate turn of events in this fashion but Skinner’s timing was certainly bordering on effortlessly embarrassing, to put it mildly. His eidetic memory was going to have a field day with sending this night back into his forethinking at random points, he knew without a shadow of a doubt as he found himself being half stared down by Skinner. He bit down on the edge of his lip as Skinner put his hand on his hip and rubbed his forehead, before pulling out his cell phone.

                “Oh, it’s just been really warm in here tonight,” Mulder could tell that he was scrolling through the numbers, a feeling of terror passing over him as he glanced back at Scully, panic written on his face. “What are you doing?”

                “I’ll try her cell phone one more time and maybe she’ll answer this time,” Skinner was obviously worried but the idea had Scully’s jaw on the floor as she scoped out her jacket on the back of the table chair, already contemplating the idea of her cell phone giving her up for a second time.

                “Fuck,” Scully was not the quietest but she kept her voice down and her responses even more calculated as she shed the blanket then got to her feet with a quickness.

                “Well, Skinner, it’s getting close to three in the morning, do you really think it’s wise to call her this late? Even if she’s not at home, I don’t know that she’d be too thrilled over a phone call this late,” Mulder was more or less buying her time as he could see her already slipping her hand into the pocket of her coat to pull the cell phone free.

                Scully’s fingers were shaking as she gathered the phone in her hand, briefly staring at it before pushing the volume button until she knew that it was completely silenced. She held her breath as she watched as his name popped up on the screen, lighting up the entire room in a flash of green light, that instinctive frustration that he actually followed through with the phone call coursing through her as she glanced at the doorway. She angled the phone down and buried it in the coat before backing away slowly while she listened to Skinner pacing in the hallway. Mulder visibly turned toward her, pressing his lips together to avoid completely losing his mind right there.

                “No answer,” Skinner hung up the phone and put it in his pocket, sighing deeply. “It just further solidifies the frustration and worry that has been plaguing me for days. You two are going to be the death of me, I swear to God.”

                The frustration was genuine and Mulder knew that it was the same type of indignant preoccupation that Scully had exhibited when she showed up drenched from head to toe. “I don’t know that I am following this conversation at all, Skinner, and I’m not entirely sure if I want to.”

                “Yeah, well, I’m not exactly up to par on it myself,” Skinner was pensive and his jaw was halfway clenched as he stared at the metallic numbers on the door, studying the shape of them as he gathered enough cojones to just say what was on his mind as he made eye contact with Mulder again. “Can I come in? You and I need to talk, it’s important.”

                Mulder could already see visible fluster written all over Scully’s face as she wrapped back up in the blanket and carefully took that same spot on the floor, “Can’t it wait until it’s, I don’t know…light out?”

                “It’s been bothering me for days and you deserve to know,” Skinner was dancing around the issue like he had just gotten in trouble for getting caught after curfew again as he looked Mulder in the eye, clearing his throat. “Maybe you’ll be able to get through to her once you hear what I have to say if you want to sit down and discuss this?”

                The neighbors were likely already half tempted to call the super on him for yet another noise violation but the petite, half naked woman on his floor was keeping Mulder firmly in place as he gritted his teeth and shook his head at the irate man in the hallway. “You’re sounding cryptic…and intoxicated, a combination of which I’d normally be game to have a lengthy discussion over but this seems like an uncomfortable one instead of something I can laugh at you later over.”

                The unified feeling of jackassery was increasing with every passing second as Scully felt like a jerk, Mulder felt like a jerk, and Skinner felt like a jerk simultaneously, all three for nearly the same reason. They were all hiding something in little doses, committing more or less, creating something tawdry out of what should have been a relief, maybe close to a beautiful situation in the exact, right light. Scully swallowed hard and knew that Skinner had been encouraging her, pushing her even, to be honest with Mulder and she was less than pleased with herself as she realized that retreating to Mulder’s floor was just another complex part of her defense mechanism. She was hiding in spite of not really needing to and someone had to surrender to it. Someone had to let it all go and sway that white flag in the air like nothing else mattered.

                The comedy of errors had to stop at some time and the stalemate had to be put to an end by one of them.

                “I haven’t had a drop of alcohol even though doing so might’ve helped me at least get some sleep instead of being preoccupied over the mental health of Agent Scully and clearing my conscience in front of you,” Skinner was at the end of his rope and the consternation in his voice was evident as Mulder’s hand against the door started to slide down just a little. “If you’ll just let me get this off my chest.”

                “Just give her some time to sort whatever is going on and when she’s ready to talk she will, you know how she gets,” Mulder could already see Scully standing up with his blanket wrapped around her petite figure in his peripheral as he inhaled another deep, cleansing breath just thinking about what was underneath. “As for clearing your conscience, what in the blue hell are you feeling guilty about, exactly, Skinner?”

                “Mulder…” Scully’s voice nearly stopped Mulder’s heart on the spot as she tried not to sound as ragged as she felt, dragging the blanket with her as she stood on the other side of the table. “Just let him in, he’ll badger you long enough and your neighbors are probably ready to march out here and read all of us the riot act if the conversation isn’t at least halfway muffled.”

                Scully’s voice gave Skinner the harshest of slaps across the face as he nearly stumbled backwards, the shock evident and even worse when Mulder pushed the door open as he swallowed hard, trying not to stare. “Oh, well this is certainly more awkward than I had envisioned this being.”

                “Yes, yes it is, isn’t it?” Mulder knew his face must’ve been beet red as he crossed his arms and looked over at her while she held the blanket shut with both hands, his tee shirt enormous on her, doing very little to hide her visibly attentive nipples.

                “I took your advice about having that serious discussion with Mulder,” Scully was shaky, at best, and her arms were doing the talking as she moved them just far enough forward to cause the blanket to drop to the floor, exposing her naked from the thighs down body in the process. “Oh, fuck me running backwards down a fucking hill…really?”

                Skinner had a nearly perfect view of her fidgeting in the tee shirt, pulling it down to make sure that nothing was showing, triggering the blush across his face. “By the looks of things, I’d say that talk must have gone very well.”

                Mulder had a smirk buried behind his palm as he could see Scully looking in his direction with her bottom lip out and knees knocked together, looking quite pitiful. “Oh, my God.”

                “Does that mean that I’m off the hook for having to say what happened in the elevator?” Skinner’s eyes went between them, a look of paranoia passing over him as he took a step backward. “I would love to not revisit that if I can avoid it entirely.”

                Scully shifted her weight just a little, looking over at Mulder before looking toward Skinner, shaking her head. “I told him what happened…including exactly what I’m assuming you’re trying to bumble your way through right now. So everything is right with the world and you don’t have to keep beating yourself up about it.”

                “All of what is right?” Skinner didn’t want to dwindle in the way of what had clearly been a very private and intimate moment but he was still stuck on the guilt of the elevator rather than the words he had just heard as he stepped all of the way into Mulder’s entryway. “I don’t want to drag it out but explain exactly what I’m in for because I don’t want to get blindsided by a wayward sucker punch when everyone’s fully dressed back at the office.”

                “Damn, that was hostile, Mr. lip service,” Mulder crossed his arms, surprised at the fervency behind Skinner’s voice as he took a couple of steps toward Scully simply out of instinct.

                “Mulder!” Scully knew he was joking but it was obvious as ever that Skinner didn’t as he took a halfway defensive stance and balled up a fist out of pure reflex, thinking that Mulder was about to slug him right there. “He’s joking, Skinner…Right, Mulder?”

                “I could’ve said Hot lips, but I didn’t think it was appropriate right now,” Mulder knew he was goading a reaction from Skinner as his jawline flinched and shoulders went rigid. “Yes, I’m joking.”

                “I didn’t come here to be ridiculed or chastised over what had me embarrassed and bright red afterwards, okay?” Skinner was understandably irritated as he was now bordering on scolding both of them. “I was caught off guard, I didn’t ask for it, and I wasn’t expecting it. There…I said it.”

                “Skinner, when I told you that he knew everything, he really does know everything,” Scully contemplated throwing something directly at Skinner’s head but thought against it as she watched the vein in the center of his forehead pop out a little bit. “It got a little bit heated, impolite even, before it ended up looking like what you’re seeing right now…and I was fully prepared for any consequence of saying what I needed to say. You don’t have to keep beating yourself up for this because I told him and I didn’t hesitate to do so.”

                He was putting the pieces together and Mulder had his focus on her all over again as Skinner nodded, responding to Scully. “Heated?”

                “No one started throwing fists or anything, Skinner, she just showed up and kind of blurted it out. It was pretty impressive, actually, just knowing she put herself on the line without thinking about how I might react to it,” Mulder forced a smirk and watched Scully’s knee bend, following the curve of her leg to the tips of her toes, biting the inside of his cheek to stop the onslaught of a groan. “It took a lot of guts.”

                “It was important to just let it out,” Scully blushed as she caught Mulder looking at her and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, biting down just enough to trap it there.

                Skinner already felt the tension renewing in the air as he watched them giving each other the makings of seduction via sideways glances as he rolled his eyes and checked his watch. “Well, now that I know that I don’t have to keep killing myself over that—I can wipe it from my mind and stop being a very clear intrusion on whatever I just interrupted.”

                “Skinner, before you go,” Scully stopped him as he started to turn toward the door, her arms crossed across her chest, awkwardly fidgeting again. “No more impeccable timing to drop pearls of wisdom even if you’re absolutely right about it nearly every time?”

                “Noted,” Skinner angled himself away just as Mulder gripped the edge of the door, adding in a smartass remark fully ruin what was left of their composure as his eyebrows went up into the air. “Oh, and…do play nice, children.”

                Mulder shut the door and heard the sound of Scully’s relieved sigh from behind him as he twisted the lock into place and slid the chain until it clicked solidly against the metal stopper. The music, soft and melodic in the background brought both of them down from the cessation that had inquietude flowing through them. They didn’t want another disruption as they momentarily made eye contact, gazes burning through one another with such ferocity that a light breeze would’ve toppled both over in an instant. They were both already heavily contemplating the other as Scully’s hand gripped the top of a chair, her toes kicking at the edge of the pile of blanket before her. The twinge was undeniable for both of them as Scully could already feel the twinge of electricity coursing through her from the inside out, inviting another wave of heat as she glanced back at Mulder again. Mulder wiped the light sheen of sweat that still clung to his forehead as he walked around to the front of her and pulled her into another embrace, hands gathering along her lower back.

                Scully’s eyes widened as Mulder’s erection pressed against her inner thigh, the sensations just as intense as they had been when they were on the floor. “Mulder!”

                “You really can’t blame me for maintaining an erection while you’re standing there fidgeting in nothing but your underwear and my tee shirt, Scully,” Mulder’s hands wandered to her backside, giving her a firm, heavy handed squeeze that took her up to her tiptoes, inviting a breathy gasp in the process. “I’m just glad you didn’t try to bend over—It would have been a mess.”

                “I’m gutsy but not that gutsy,” Scully smiled as he took a step back, taking the pressure off of her thighs from giving her that not so gentle reminder of what lay in waiting underneath of his sweats. “And besides, giving you a complex is one thing but I don’t know that instilling that image in Skinner’s memory would have been very nice.”

                The rain had slowed and the soft light against the inside of Mulder’s living room was a dull, almost bluish glow that joined the greenish haze from the fish tank, the bubbler barely audible above the stereo’s melodic hum. Mulder couldn’t necessarily fully appreciate the colors as they danced on her pale skin but he could see her eyes as they practically pierced right through him, her striking features drawing him in like a moth to a flame. Scully could’ve said the same for him as his hazel eyes stood out in the dim, his ample lashes and pouty bottom lip capturing her attention to a hypnotic level. His sensuality was radiating to the surface as she let her eyes drift over him, drinking in the sight of the man that she had only imagined in this way up until now. It was like they had been dancing around the thought, the ideal, of what lie beneath as Mulder stepped between the casted light and Scully’s figure, gazing down at her.

                “Stand still,” Mulder held his hands against her hips and kept her from moving away from the chair, her backside nearly all of the way against it. “That would have been an awkward water cooler conversation to have if we manage to make it in to work tomorrow…”

                “I’m sure you would’ve loved to see the look on his face nonetheless, huh?” Scully watched as he knelt down just a bit and slid his hands under the tee shirt, her voice squeaking just a little from his groping. “What are you doing?”

                “What I should have done earlier,” Mulder was gentle but quick with his fingers as he dragged her panties down, thumbs rough against her skin. “I have had one too many disruptions tonight and the last thing I want to battle against is this little bit of fabric.”

                Scully swallowed hard as Mulder discarded her panties and came up to meet her, sliding both hands across her ass, exposing her to the air, soliciting a pitchy yelp from her. “Oh damn, that’s a little breezy…”

                “Not for long…you coming?” Mulder’s voice dropped an octave as he backed away from her and watched Scully’s damp hair sway as she moved past him, giving the blanket a light kick until it was on the area rug in the living room. “You’ve got that look on your face, Scully.”

                “Mmmm…not yet,” Scully raised her eyebrow as she held the tee shirt down, emphasizing the shape of her breasts in the process, and moved slowly to her knees, concealing her sex like she had played this moment in her head before carrying it out. “What look would that be?”

                “Would you like to?” He had seen exactly what she did there as he slid out of the sweat pants, keeping his eyes on hers as she rubbed her knees together and leaned against her elbows. “That look like I might be in trouble here in a second if I come down there.”

                “Isn’t that the plan, Mulder? You’re going to be in trouble if you don’t,” Scully sat up and leaned forward, extending the tips of her fingers just enough to graze his calf with the tips of her fingernails, sending an immediate shiver up his leg toward his groin, eliciting a loud groan in the process. “Well, hello…”

                “Tell me again how we managed to wait this long to get to this point?” Mulder wrestled his right leg out of the sweats and kicked them away, dropping to his knees with a lack-luster amount of grace, coaxing a little bit of a laugh from her as he grabbed her by her knees. “I’m failing to see how it took this long—and that’s coming from my own equivocation on lusting after you.”

                Scully had little time to react as he dragged her toward his lap, his palms against the backs of her knees, the laughter still carrying through until she felt her very bare backside bump right against his boxers and thighs. “There’s probably a very useful quotation about Pandora’s box that would be fairly appropriate right now but I can’t seem to think beyond the rush of blood from my head to other parts of my body.”

                Mulder was interested in so much more crashing into her as he gathered his hands at her waistline and drew her up to meet him, encouraging her thighs around him as he laced his fingers through her hair, making every inch of her scalp tingle. “You would try to redirect this to something plausibly intelligent, wouldn’t you?”

                Scully couldn’t help but shake a little as the shirt kept riding up, her mouth hovering dangerously close to his as she lowered her eyelashes and licked her lips. “Give me credit for putting together a full sentence—I don’t know how long that will last.”

                “I don’t know if you can consider that an accomplishment, Scully…” Mulder slipped his right hand with deftness all the way to her inner thigh, keeping his left against the nape of her neck, his thumb grazing wetness that prompted a shudder and a moan in an instant. “…At least not yet.”

                Scully shook her head with a bit of fervency as she struggled to keep eye contact with him, her head swimming while Mulder’s thumb teased the already unmistakably wet and aching part of her that was now half pressed against his thighs, her words coming out like a hiss. “You’re not fucking playing fair and might make me go into cardiac right here, Mulder.”

                “Now that was impressive,” Mulder’s teeth dotted along the hollow of her neck, nibbling on the goosebumps as they formed, the sound of her panting becoming more ragged with every breath as the teasing only continued. “How long have you been hiding this, Doctor Scully?”

                “Hiding what?” Scully knew exactly what he was referencing as her own hips double-crossed her, involuntarily bucking against his thumb, fingers squeezing his deltoids with a little urgency as her eyes fluttered shut while she tilted her head to the side just a little more. “Ahhhh…God, yes!”

                  “A little white lie is still a lie,” Mulder’s tongue was the relief between his teeth setting against her skin as he upturned his palm against the curve of her inner thigh, caressing heat and generating more wetness with his index and middle finger, seducing a low moan in the process. “So, I’ll ask it again…how long have you been hiding this?”

                Scully was feeling particularly out of control as both thighs twitched and her instant reaction was to hold his hand still while she leaned forward, moaning hard against his collarbone. “Um, ah, fuck, probably when you had me half cornered on the…God dammit, couch…”

                Mulder had a grin on his lips even as he dragged his bottom lip up her neck to the curve of her jaw, slipping his middle finger into her wetness, barely massaging her bundle of nerves knowing damn well it was killing her as her sharp little moans became louder in his ear. “I can tell, Scully, I can really tell.”

                “Why are you still teasing me, Mulder?” Scully whined in his ear, her instinctive reaction to grind against his fingers even though she knew that was only pushing the inevitable that much closer. “I was ready for you before the clothes even came off.”

                Mulder carefully slid his fingers back out of her, her pelvic wall almost tightening enough that he thought she was about to lose control entirely but she held onto him and looked into his eyes with his sudden absence. She shuddered just a little against his chest as he gripped the bottom of the t-shirt with both of his hands, dragging it up and over her head. Mulder had realized he hadn’t taken a moment really look at Scully as he held the wadded up shirt in his hand for a few extra seconds before throwing it onto the couch, never once taking his eyes off of the pale and pink woman straddling his lap. She was glistening with sweat and her skin was already showing the signs of the full body blush in spots along with bite marks along parts of her neck where he had gotten a little too zealous with the hickeys. She wasn’t complaining, though, as her chest heaved, the peek-a-boo of her painfully hard, almost rose colored nipples becoming a distraction as he stole a glance before looking at her pretty blues.

                The smile was unreal as he wrapped his arms around her and grasped her ass with both hands, sliding her as close as she could possibly get without deprivation of air for either of them. The hunger was obvious and evident as Scully tightened her grip on Mulder’s back and muffled a moan behind her closed mouth and flaring nostrils. He wanted her like no other but he was resisting the urge to speed forward with reckless abandon, lay waste to what was left of the flesh on their bones and rattle the floorboards in the process.

                “I wanted to take my time, Scully, and the last thing I wanted to do was waste an opportunity to make the first time that we made love last awhile,” Mulder kissed the tip of her nose and adjusted his grip on her as he felt his erection pushing ever so slightly against her already wet, pulsating lips and inner thighs. “Savor you a little bit…taste as much of you as I can.”

                Scully gritted her teeth and groaned again as she felt him twitching against her, sending just the right amount of pressure straight to her clit as she felt another wave of heat drive through her. “As romantic and wonderful as that sounds, if you don’t hurry—I’m going to last about thirty seconds like one of those embarrassing teenage boys with a porno magazine and I’m not exaggerating.”

                “It’s like you know exactly how puberty went for me, Scully,” Mulder grinned as he slowly lowered her onto the floor, comfortably staying right between her legs like he had always intended on being there to enjoy every little bit of her.

                “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject for you, Mulder,” Scully’s giggle rippled through her as she had her fingers along his chest, while he shimmied out of his boxers and finally collided with every inch of skin before she slipped both hands to his ass and pulled him closer, voice ragged. “Can I make it up to you?”

                “Jesus Christ almighty,” The laugh that left Mulder’s mouth was a cross between a chuckle and a groan as he nearly collapsed against her, the heat of her skin and the excess friction putting a little more pressure on his considerably nagging hard-on, his mouth hovering close to her neck. “Have you been dying to use that line on me for ages? Practicing it in a mirror? Wrote it down on a note card? Seduction 101…intended subject, Fox Mulder…FBI.”

                “I envisioned it more like seven minutes in heaven, fumbling in that dusty office with the lights off and one of your slideshows cast against a wall that I’m definitely not paying full attention to, but this is significantly better,” Scully licked her lips and arched her back, pushing her thighs a little higher on his hips, eyes fluttering as the blood started to rush to her extremities all over again.

                Mulder tried not to moan too loudly as the laughter was becoming a little shrill as he almost pictured the idea of Scully’s ass against the desk, some crop circle or abandoned, unmarked helicopters spraying fields of ginseng with pure fire photo slide lit up across the wall while his tongue was in her mouth. “That idea isn’t really half bad, Scully, and I think we should try it…as soon as possible.”

                The laughter all but faded in spite of the levity that flowed while they became wrapped tightly together, hearts beating a little faster while they blew away the last hazy marker in the sand, taking the leap that lead straight to destiny’s inevitability. Mulder revived that gaze with Scully as he softly squeezed her right thigh and slowly, inch by painstaking inch, met that moment that had them both shaking, sliding into her until her filled her completely. Scully didn’t urge him on as she felt every little nerve cry out and shake within her as his puzzle piece infused perfectly with hers, as if they had been long waiting to meet. Mulder held a breath, his thighs shaking against her while the thought ran through them of an “at last” and “finally” but neither of them wanted to rush it, neither wanted to spoil it as they met lips, met hands, and swallowed each other’s ragged breaths. The feeling was heady, to say the least, as both were already like naked livewires tangled up in one another as they mutually broke their kiss and stayed with their foreheads barely touching as the panting took over.

                “I’m afraid that if I start moving, someone is going to call and interrupt us again and I really don’t need to be yelling at anyone to fuck off right now,” Mulder’s voice dropped, his eyes still closed as the warmth of her breath collided with his own, his right hand exquisitely gripping her outer thigh while his left played a careful balancing act against the area rug.

                “If they call and you actually pick up…I’m not stopping, the avalanche is already on the way down the hill,” Scully bit down on her bottom lip and pulsated against him involuntarily, the mutual moaning almost instantly leaving their mouths as she opened her eyes, struggling for each syllabic utterance. “I really need you to start moving…I’m already so close, Mulder.”

                “Wait, how long has it been, Scully?” Mulder was already feeling the vicelike grip as he tried to inhale a sharp breath and quell what was certainly going to be a quick end for himself as he gazed down at her. “Oh fuck, please tell me you’re not doing that on purpose.”

                “I’m not—I told you, I’m close and you’re driving me fucking crazy,” Scully was shaking underneath of him, writhing just enough to cause subtle, yet effective, movements of her hips as she dragged her fingers up his back, hungrily reminding him of the ache she felt. “It’s been a very long time, longer than I want to admit.”

                “And you’re ruining me,” Mulder thrust into her hard enough to coax one of the loudest, more ragged moans that he had gotten from her since the night had begun. “That was unexpectedly…hot.”

                Scully was panting as she stole a quick but wet kiss from him before giving him that knowing expression that nearly brought him to his knees on more than one occasion, her voice completely hoarse with every syllable. “Mulder, finish undoing me…leave nothing left but a melted pile of what’s left of my body on the floor.”

                Scully was persuasive enough as the look in her eyes carried more than a little bit of weight, stimulating a considerable amount of movement from Mulder as he found that motion and played each note with a careful precision. She wasn’t downplaying the urgency of just how close she was as she found his rhythm with a high level of quickness, coming up to meet each thrust with an equal amount of intensity that he presented to her. They didn’t need a lot of time to figure out one another’s speed as the thrusts were timed to the beat of the music, even to a point that Scully had wondered if Mulder had given a great deal of thought to what it would feel like to be buried this deep in her, moving to the exact song playing in the background. The moans even had a rhythm, building to a crescendo and dipping back down before repeating it all over again. Their out of practice bodies had adapted to the needs of the other much faster than anticipated as Mulder’s arms slid underneath of Scully’s, urging her ever close as a wave of adrenaline bit at him, nearly sending him off the deep end.

                “I can feel you holding  back—don’t,” Mulder was watching her mouth contort as she tried to hold back the onslaught of the oncoming orgasm as her palm found his cheek, caressing it as he continued to mercilessly drive in and out of her.

                “Mulder, I…fuck…oh, my God,” Scully’s sentences were all but shattered as her heart was thudding up in her throat while every little nerve ending inside of her begged to cry out, her thighs shaking along with her lips as the sweat was almost dripping off of her.

                Mulder was wavering just as badly himself but he was staving off that collapse of control for her sake as he leaned in close, his lips against her ear, the words coming out as a whisper. “Scully, I know…let go…come, just come.”

                She couldn’t hold it back anymore as his name echoed in her ears before it bounced off the walls, her eyes rolling back in her head as she held him close with arms, legs, and muscles that hadn’t spasmed with quite that much excess intensity in ages. She felt the rush, the flood, of emotions, nerve endings, pulsating through every little piece of her as she tightened around his cock like a vice, rolling through an orgasm. She held onto him with her right hand while her other dug into the fibers of the carpet beneath them, sliding across until she met skin again, her fingers shaking as her head continued to swim. She didn’t know exactly how many times she screamed his name but it was multiple times as she felt the burn of the carpet sliding across her back from Mulder continuing to thrust into the orgasm, creating a puddle all over his area rug. The room went completely fuzzy for another thirty seconds as little stars went into Scully’s field of vision while the blood rushed straight to her clit as the rolling orgasm went into a second without so much as a little bit of warning, setting off the chain reaction of unintelligible moans and cries as she grasped his back, hands shaking almost all of the way to her elbows.

                “Mulder, please…” Scully’s word popped out more like a hoarse yet aggressive plea as the top of her head was slipping dangerously close to the desk chair, much to Mulder’s dismay as he pulled her back to him, inadvertently thrusting far harder than intended. “Fuck, I swear to God, you’re going to split me straight down the middle.”

                “Well, hello full sentences,” Mulder was amused and aching in unison as he felt his own equally potent climax knocking at the door as he was struggling to keep from obliterating his tongue with his teeth as the fuzziness was passing into his field of vision. “Oh, fuck!”

                They were both panting as Mulder struggled with the last bits of thrusts and found himself shouting out her name with enough volume and intensity that it more than caught Scully’s attention as she looked up at him wincing. Scully gathered the final syllable as she pulled his lip into her mouth, roughly angling her tongue past his teeth, triggering that magnetic impulse as Mulder drove his hips forward one, last time and came hard. She held onto him through every little moment of his spasms, her thighs wrapped tightly around him, arms gripping his shoulders until her knuckles went white, and her mouth taking over his, tongue gliding along his while every bit of their energy flowed like a broken water main. For a moment, neither of them could hear anything aside from the beating of their own hearts along with the drops of water against the window comingled with the sloppiest of kissing that they could’ve managed. It was raw and cathartic in the same breath as that high kept them riding that moment for quite a while until they could allow their mouths to separate, the shaking still prevalent as they gazed at one another dripping in so much sweat.

                “You ruined the rug, Scully,” Mulder could barely even speak as his chest heaved against hers, his hands gently caressing her bright pink cheeks. “I don’t want to move but I don’t want to pass out like this.”

                “We ruined your rug…there is no solo action in that,” Scully nudged his nose with the tip of her own and gave him a soft kiss on his bottom lip, her arms finally going limp against the floor, her nerve endings finally starting to calm down. “I can’t feel my legs or my insides—and if I try to stand up, I’m going to crumble.”

                “Do you need a rundown of the situation down there? I can tell you, I am still inside of you and it’s very, very nice,” Mulder had the tip of his tongue between his teeth as the air was wafting over both of them, evoking a heavy presence of the chills.

                Scully smirked and rolled her eyes, allowing one foot to slide to the floor, her knee still in the air, the heat finally subsiding. “Oh, I can feel THAT quite well, Mulder…and maybe you should stop with the excess wiggling so round two isn’t immediate because I’m not ready for that.”

                Mulder pulled the pillow that had slid away from both of them and tucked it underneath of her head as he slowly withdrew from her, both closing their eyes as the exhale took more than their breaths from their lungs. Scully felt his heat leave her as the air nipped at every exposed bit of her, her hands sliding to her side as Mulder gathered the blanket that lay at their feet in a heap. For a moment his eyes lingered over the sloping, gentle curves of Scully as she looked up at him, admiring each little part of her that he had just spent only an introductory amount of time worshipping from the inside out. Her teeth captured her lip as a smile appeared, watching him move as he inched the blanket over both of them and lied down next to her, his back against the carpet and his head sharing the pillow with her. There was a certain level of boyishness in it as he rubbed his shoulder against hers while they stared up at the ceiling, the music playing in the background.

                “That was immaculate timing,” Scully adjusted the blanket across her chest and let the lyrics wash over her as she felt Mulder’s fingers wrap around hers between them, never once flinching in the process.

                Mulder grinned and chuckled a little bit, rubbing her palm with his thumb, sliding one foot out from under the blanket. “Well, I do want to hold your hand, Scully…and timing was perfectly coincidental that the Beatles gave me a bit of a cheesy transition to do it in.”

                “Well, cheesy or not…I liked it,” Scully put her free arm behind the pillow, feeling the coolness underneath of it as she blinked slowly. “I’m completely in awe over the fact that just a few hours ago I was in my bed lost in more confusion than I have experienced in a long time but the one trend, the one moment that kept me from losing every last bit of myself was you and telling you everything.”

                “I will always rise to the occasion for a little bit of ‘are you serious’ level cheese, Scully, and I prefer it if I can do it for you,” Mulder liked the feeling of his hand delicately wound around hers as he watched the light and shadow dancing on the ceiling from the rain still falling, enjoying the sound of her breathing next to him. “I know that you’re still unsure of how to talk about the re-occurring dream but I think so much of tonight came to pass because it opened you up to your own set of trepidations over how you feel.”

                “While I was searching for you, I was walking the halls with the Gunmen and they went one direction while I went another—I passed through one hall and felt the chill go through me, the energy was like I had just run directly into a cloud of pure, white light filled with adrenaline,” Scully swallowed hard, realizing she was recollecting more than she could’ve ever known she was. “It was brief but the smell of perfume lingered and that anxious hesitation passed over me like I knew I’d find you because you were there even though I had not seen you once.”

                Mulder listened to the hesitation and gave her fingers a light squeeze underneath of the blanket. “Like you felt me walking through you?”

                “No, I know you and I’d know your energy if it passed through this body,” Scully turned her head toward him, furrowing her eyebrows. “It felt distinctly feminine and after that night’s sleep, when the dreams started, seeing what happened over and over—I suppose it should have made sense but I didn’t really think about it until now.”

                “Are you actually admitting to experiencing paranormal phenomenon, Scully?” Mulder’s eyes lit up as he, also, pivoted his face toward her, smirking just enough to invite an audible scoff from her.

                Scully wasn’t amused but her eyeroll was stopped immediately as he tilted toward her, kissing the curve of her shoulder. “Actually, I’m relating it to a considerably more real phenomenon that Missy once tried to shove down my throat when I was an undergraduate—about the comingling of souls along the divide between their past life and their present life. She tried to encourage me, constantly, to align my chakras so that I wouldn’t be so open to a traumatic experience if I were to ever have a past life dream or encounter.”

                “You told her to stop smoking the Mary Jane, didn’t you?” Mulder saw the light in her eyes as she recollected a moment with her sister.

                “I did tell her to get that damn crystal out of my face before I smacked her with it,” Scully laughed a little, blinking slowly as she felt safe in his gaze. “Missy wanted me to be open minded with my educational background and see things from a perspective from alternative medicines and healing techniques. I preferred that strict, rational approach that had her so upset with me at times—but she never lost patience with me about it.”

                “I wonder what she would’ve said about the dreams?” Mulder could get used to being next to her, even if it was on the floor, quite literally side-to-side on top of their own fluids. “Seems like they’d be right up her alley.”

                “She barely knew you but she knew the lengths that I’d go for you—and she always felt that stars align for certain souls, that they are destined to meet over and over, discover their connection, and realize that they were meant to be enraptured by one another,” Scully rubbed her shoulder against his and adjusted her grip within his hand.

                “Fate,” Mulder’s lips clung to the word as he brought the hand holding hers up to his mouth, kissing the space above her knuckles, keeping her hand up near her chest for a long moment  before pulling it back under the covers.

                “Exactly,” Scully nodded, the softness in her voice evident as her eyes started to close right next to him, succumbing finally to the sleep that she had been needing for days.

                Mulder didn’t speak or disturb the slumber as he glanced at the clock on the shelf near the fish tank, noting that it was already after four in the morning. He simply adjusted the blanket across both of them and smiled as her skin brushed against his, slowly lulling him into that same sleep. The dawn would break eventually and reality would have to be faced…but not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly hope you loved it. It was longer than I anticipated but it was worth every, little second and every word was carefully constructed.  
> Thank you, as always, to Monika, for reading the bits and pieces that I was concerned about making sense.
> 
> There is likely to be at least one more chapter so be on the lookout.
> 
> Quotes By:  
> Anais Nin  
> Christy Ann Martine
> 
> References made:  
> “Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles  
> Sleep, Dreams, and Past Lives – multiple articles


	6. Till Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the three little words that Mulder says to Scully in his hospital bed after being rescued from the Queen Anne as it re-appeared in the Bermuda Triangle...and the strange connection that Scully starts to feel to a memory that Scully couldn't possibly have.
> 
> I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all of the ages of this world alone. – JRR Tolkien
> 
> Post Triangle – Please note, for the sake of sanity, we are calling the rescue date Friday so that he wouldn’t be returning to work in any capacity from observation until Monday morning. If someone has actual dates from that ep, just let me know because I searched the episode multiple times and couldn’t find dates.
> 
> ***Awkwardly Smutty (Yes, awkwardly) – enjoy***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This is the morning after and the passing of what happens when they leave Mulder's apartment*
> 
> Kersh has come back and we have named his irritating assistant! I truly hope you love her little description (and her name)
> 
> Disclaimer: Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, and Assistant Director Skinner belong respectively to Chris Carter, FOX Productions, and TenThirteen Productions. All other characters are original and any likeness or named similarities to any real-life persons are purely coincidental (unless, well, you’ve been told, then you should’ve expected such things and shouldn’t get upset over anything that happens to them, respectively)

 

_Every moment is a moment_

_of decision, and every moment_

_turns us inexorably_

_in the direction_

_of the rest of our lives._

-Mary Balogh

 

7:30 AM

 

                The light streaming through the window above and behind the desk hadn’t been enough to betray the peace and quiet, the gentlest of snoring from Mulder as Scully slept with both limbs draped across him, mouth against the curve of his shoulder, lips slightly agape. Mulders fingers stretched across the edge of the blanket, pulling it higher as the dull, yet potent light coming through the slats in the blinds encouraged the lower body stretch, popping every joint in the process. Scully barely stirred aside from the soft groan as her arm moved across Mulder’s chest, tickling through his chest hair and coaxing his eyes open just a little. His joints were singing and straining simultaneously as the middle of the night’s events came flooding back, rushing through his consciousness as the smell of Scully’s formerly rain drenched hair wafted across his proboscis. It hadn’t been enough sleep for either of them but the half-exhaustion was a pleasant reminder of what had transpired as the scent of sex and sweat above the remnants of precipitation still permeated through the air like a half lifted fog. He admired the sweetly pale form tangled around him and listened to the breaths as they entered and left her nostrils.

                _I could get used to this._ He was thinking it as he looked her over, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth.

                It was, by all accounts, the morning after despite the few hours that had drifted away while they slept, and most people looked at such an event with anxiety but all he saw was a rare form in his arms, every bit as beautiful in this light as she had been in the shadows. He watched her lips move as her head tilted, pulling herself closer to him, her eyebrows furrowing for just a moment as the chilly morning air nipped at her bare shoulders, sending a fair chill down her back. Mulder closed his eyes for a moment as the low, melodic tune still played on the stereo and reveled in the feel of her skin against his as he felt her chest rising and falling against him. She sighed, audibly, and inadvertently gripped his side with a little more intensity than, likely, intended, nearly coaxing a grunt from him as it pinched just enough skin to become mildly painful. The mumbling proceeded the sighing despite how incomprehensible they were, the volume of her voice half inaudible as Mulder studied her features.

                Scully was dreaming.

                “Scully…” Mulder didn’t want to wake her but he truly could not tell if she was having a good or a bad dream as her lips began to tremble and she grimaced, fingers refusing to let go of him.

                “Mulder…” Scully’s voice was raspy but compelling as she hit a note that sent a shiver down his spine as her lips parted and contorted, inviting him to bridge the gap.

                It must’ve been an awfully good dream as he felt that singular compulsion radiate off of her as he met the distance and felt her come up to meet him with an equal amount of interest and passion. It nearly took him off balance as he felt her tongue slide past his lips, brushing along his teeth while his eyes closed and his arms enveloped her, drawing her closer. She was caught between that place where awake and sleep meet as the sensations of a dream and the very real, very warm mouth against her own had her intoxicated in an instant. Mulder couldn’t help himself but groan into her mouth, bringing her closer to consciousness, his right hand caressing her cheek, thumb dragging her bottom lip down just enough to part her lips a little further, angling his mouth to drink her in. The hunger had barely been quelled from their middle of the night romp as Scully’s hips shook and sent her flying over the edge of that same desire all over again. It was in that moment that she knew that it was real as she grasped his arm and invited him closer, dragging her fingers up his side until he was nearly on top of her.

                Their lips dragged apart and made a popping sound as Mulder’s left hand was already squeezing her thigh, a smile curving with eyes still closed as the sound of a moan washed over him. “Good morning.”

                “Mmmmm…that it is,” Scully’s eyes didn’t want to open but her narrow lidded gaze met his as she forced them to, biting down on her bottom lip for a moment as the goosebumps popped up across her skin. “Oh my God, Mulder, what are you trying to do to me?”

                Mulder already had a severe case of morning wood that he couldn’t even attempt to hide as Scully’s thighs naturally gravitated around his hips, inviting him closer. “I do believe that you started it but if you insist on a little motivation, I’m pushing you closer to the edge of calling in sick today…so I can do the same?”

                “Was that supposed to come out as a question?” Scully held in a breath as his arm swept under her, gathering at the small of her back. “You may have to help my focus a little since I’m a bit keenly aware of the very naked, indurate situation pressing against me.”

                “Mmm…with any luck that’ll be the reason you need to call in,” Mulder was half manhandling her as he guided her off of the pillow and nibbled on the space below her earlobe, heavily breathing against her skin. “Playing hookie to go for round two? I think that might be a little bit more interesting, don’t you think?”

                Scully wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him a little closer, sliding her fingers through his already tousled hair, gasping into the air, through her teeth. “I don’t know, anticipatory stares from across our desks sounds pretty alluring…making you uncomfortable in front of Kersh with a bit of a lip or a slip of the tongue, so that by the time the day was over it’s all you can do to get all of the way to the car just to get even the most minuscule of tastes before hauling ass out of a parking space to put distance between us and that building to continue what we started.”

                Mulder chased her mouth with his own, aggressively capturing her bottom lip with his teeth while he gathered her into a nearly seated position, his hands sliding up her back. “Wow, that’s certainly not a new thought—you’ve been holding onto that mental picture for quite a while, huh?”

                “Might look a little bad if I admitted exactly how long I’ve thought about it or the sheer number of times that I’ve pictured a scenario nearly identical to that one…or some subtle variation of it,” Scully’s smirk clung on her lips for a long moment before Mulder tilted his mouth into hers, eclipsing the space between them again as their breaths collided and flesh reignited the spark set in the middle of the night.

                They had already been lost in each other for hours and the forward motion was like a freight train as Mulder’s agility and strength met in equal measure as he encouraged Scully’s thighs fully around his hips, barely a gap between them. Her hands gripped the space between his shoulder blades, thumbs angling toward the ceiling as Mulder’s hands slipped straight to her ass and gave her a firm squeeze as her tongue slipped beyond his teeth. It was undeniable that the feel of her skin, along with the amazing hum of a moan that reverberated into his mouth, had him half intoxicated within a few precious moments but he was holding his own as he slid his right hand to the back of her head, angling her head back until he could hear her moans aiming toward the ceiling. His mouth was skilled, gifted even, as he nibbled in the curve of her jawline and followed the hollow of her neck toward her collarbone, giving her hair the most gentle of tugs until her head tilted back to meet each move he made. Scully wasn’t expecting the teasing again but he was doing just that as his left hand lifted her off of his lap just enough to feel the searing heat emanate from a considerable, more than ready erection that had been pulsing since his eyes opened.

                “One of us needs to call before this goes too far or this is going to wind up being one of those days we live to regret, Scully,” Mulder’s eyes were closed, his mouth against the space above her breasts, nibbling in a downward, sloping pattern, stubble rubbing against her skin just enough to be felt as he could hear her panting into the air again.

                Scully gripped the back of his head and clamped her eyes shut, fingers desperately shaking against his scalp as she bit down on her bottom lip, suffocating a loud moan. “Of course you’d pose that as a task that might need to be finished while you’re pushed right up against me…knowing that I really won’t say no to you right now.”

                 “Keep moaning like that and they’ll believe you’re dying without hesitation,” Mulder set his teeth against the upper curve of her left breast, grazing stubble across the delicate flesh above her nipple, coaxing a higher pitched yelp from her. “Probably not like that, though, Scully.”

                Every muscle in Scully’s legs and along her abdominals twitched, sending another fiery jolt through her that beguiled a guttural whimper as she half flung her head back. “Mulder, the only calling I am capable of making…is your name…at the ceiling.”

                “Fuck it, they can assume we’re both near death,” Mulder’s eyes nearly rolled back into his head as her vocal intonation sent a chill down his spine and awakened every little nerve ending in his body, the involuntary spasm finally meeting skin as a thrust had him as close as physics would allow.

                The motion inadvertently gave her all of the control as she hovered over him and watched as she gathered her fingers along the back of his neck, undulating at the hips just enough to invite a guttural groan from his lips. Mulder gripped her thighs and leaned forward, almost close enough to breathe her breath, meeting each little move she made with an upward swivel of his hips. The motion was fast, rhythmic, and mimicked the climbing beats of their heart as they opened the flood gate that had once kept their feelings, their emotions so carefully protected, guarded from one another as the pure energy collided with yearning, readied tension. Mulder’s fingers climbed higher on Scully’s sides, giving her only the most subtle of prompting as he watched the hunger in her eyes gather momentum with every passing second, her bottom lip trembling as she dug into his shoulders. He was lost there, watching her lashes close and open languidly, as he caught up to her movements as he felt that same electric heat radiating off of her from the night before.

There was something beautiful yet unabashed in the way that they both moved, losing themselves fully in one another as they had no intention of stopping in spite of nearing the tipping point.

                “I don’t want this to end but I don’t want to slow down, either,” Scully’s voice was ragged as she had her forehead against his, the rise and fall of her thighs leaving him nearly breathless, eliciting a loud moan from him in the process. “I wish I had realized that we were missing so much, all this time, Mulder.”

                “I knew, Scully, God, I knew for every, fucking, second,” Mulder held her still and felt her heart against his own, fluttering like it might burst out of her chest as he admired the sight for another fleeting second before sliding his tongue beyond her waiting lips, putting the pieces of their fragmented puzzle together all over again.

                _Brrrrrrnnnggggggg._

                The infernal, jarring ringing of Mulder’s landline nearly sent them both off balance as the loud, irritating sound had them both twitching for a moment but not nearly enough to fully take them out of their passionate lip lock. Mulder squeezed Scully’s backside a little harder than intended, almost as though he needed to reassure himself that she were fully planted on his lap, and felt the moan reverberate through his mouth and vibrate into his throat as she dug her fingernails into his back. She wouldn’t have moved if she could, and if she would have, the only movement would be that pleasing, perfection of an oscillating motion that sent them both rushing toward the edge of the shore, as they had intended since daylight had touched the blinds. He was desperate to keep going but the second set of tones only made him groan while Scully ran her fingers along his shoulder blades and rocked her hips just enough to fully pull his attention away from the phone. Mulder was taken aback by the complete disregard she was exhibiting, compelled by the almost reckless abandon that she was yearning for as he found that same rhythm again in spite of both hands secured to her ass. The third ring, however, caused just enough of a jarring sound that their lips popped free that immediately preceded a loud, exasperated gasp from Scully as she inhaled sharply and bit down hard on her bottom lip.

                “It’s probably just Frohike trying to get more information out of you again, ignore it,” Scully implored him, her voice cracking as the look of hunger in his eyes conveyed the same level of want as the one she felt brewing within her own gut as she nibbled on his bottom lip, letting her tongue linger there. “It’ll go to your voicemail.”

                “You don’t need to convince me, I’d believe just about anything that came out of your mouth in this position,” Mulder’s words were meant as a joke but they carried weight as she painstakingly teased him with another rolling swell of her hips that made him groan through his teeth as he held onto her hips a little possessively. “Trying to kill me or push me over the edge?”

                “Anything? Mmmm…don’t give me that kind of power, I might like it,” Scully’s voice dropped just enough, the sultry, breathy notes playing him like an instrument as he swiped control from her, bucking up into her to evoke a drawn out moan in the process. “I’m guaranteeing you’re not going to reach for that mother fucking phone.”

                Their fire bloomed as spirit and emotion struck together, shattering the remnants of the wall that they had built, that had housed the last of their resistance as Mulder’s lips searched hers out. He pulled her into another fiery kiss, fueled by that heavenly sound that emanated from deep within her diaphragm and became his breath as his hands slid along the soft, pale skin of her mid back, inviting a trail of goosebumps with every inch of skin they touched. They had been waiting, needing, craving one another for far too long and the edge at which they teetered on barely held them back from sailing off into an oblivion. Scully slid her fingers through his hair and squeezed his bicep with her right hand, slowing all movements as she felt the last of her control slip away and the imminent wave nearly crash against the shore.

                Scully had felt that pang of relief over the phone seemingly stopping the uninvited interruption but as soon as the relief started, it ended with another loud, chiming that had both of them audibly sighing into the air as they turned toward the desk.

                “Mother fucker, you have got to be kidding me,” Mulder was half growling as the very ready, half sweaty woman on top of him whimpered against his chin, dangerously close to his ear, white knuckling his arm.

                Scully was shaking, her voice a little higher than normal as she swallowed hard and made eye contact with him. “I’m so close…I don’t know how long I can hold out and we’re playing with fire.”

                Mulder said nothing as his mouth slid carefully to her neck, making an already pronounced hickey that much moreso as he dragged his teeth along already tender skin, sucking until her cry was louder than the phone’s additional ringing that was trying to compete with her. Scully felt a little helpless as Mulder gathered his arms around her and guided her back toward the floor, breaking contact with her neck with a singular, not so polite thrust that had the third chime completely drowned out by a mutual moan that most certainly was heard by anyone at home in the unit below. The sound of his own voice giving the obligatory introduction to the answering machine was barely noticeable above the enthusiastic vocalizations from both of them as they felt every muscle simultaneously cry out and tighten before the room went a little hazy.

                “I swear to Christ, you better answer the God damn phone, Mulder,” Skinner’s voice managed to not destroy two perfectly good climaxes in mid motion as his less than interested, heavy on the baritone intonation nearly killed them on the spot.

                Mulder’s voice was hoarse as he halfway collapsed onto Scully, heavily breathing against her neck. “Skinner is a glutton for punishment…that bastard can’t be that naïve.”

                “Pry yourself away, I don’t care which one of you answers but I’m certain that you don’t want me showing up again, unannounced, with whatever you’re doing,” Skinner’s tone was halfway to a direct reflection of the situation at hand as the still entwined, exhausted bodies on the floor were less than pleased with the sound of his voice echoing over the speaker of the answering machine.

                Mulder grabbed the phone and could do little to nothing about the heavy breathing from either one of them as he held the receiver to his ear, rolling his eyes as he could still feel the aftermath of an orgasm shaking through his bones. “You have the oddest fetish about bad timing and I’m starting to be concerned about you on a psychological level—I could recommend a few psychologists or psychiatrists who would be willing to help you out, Skin-man.”

                “Oh, go fuck yourself, Mulder,” Skinner didn’t even think about the consequences of his words as both Scully and Mulder’s heavy breathing in his ear were less than equivalent to what he wanted to hear, under any circumstance.

                Scully clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, a smirk forming on her lips as she cleared her throat, deadpanning both of them. “Himself? Hmmm…Well, I don’t know if that’ll be necessary at this point.”

                “That was perfect timing and I’m sure Skinner is going to have that buried in his brain for hours,” Mulder chuckled and gathered himself to a seated position, tugging the blanket across his lap while his peripheral gave him quite the show as Scully pulled his tee shirt back on and snuggled up next to him, eager to listen. “There’s obviously a reason you’re risking the remnants of sanity by calling when you showed up here as late as you did—and saw what you saw.”

                “I had every intention of letting it look like a sick day for you but I overheard your very irate superior wondering if either of you remembered the meeting this morning that you ‘better not be late to’ or he’ll have both of your asses in a sling in front of a panel,” Skinner was shoveling it at them and taking a personal delight in hearing the audible swallow from Mulder as he continued. “Unless testing Kersh is suddenly your brand of kink…”

                “Oh, son of a…well, we obviously forgot about it,” Mulder was still partial to the idea of staying camped out on the floor all day with a very naked Scully at his fingertips as he bit down on his bottom lip, prying his eyes away from her bare legs. “Stall him.”

                “The shoe, balanced precariously on the other foot, uncomfortable isn’t it, Mulder?” Skinner was taunting him now as Mulder searched the pile of clothes for his boxers.

                Scully rolled her eyes and put her hand out as Mulder was battling with his boxers, taking the phone from him. “Skinner, you showed up at my apartment with a half empty pint of whiskey in your hand, guilt on your conscience, to hash things out with me while you were three sheets to the wind…you owe me this.”

                Mulder’s eyebrows furrowed as he turned his head, surprised by the divulged information as he inadvertently snapped the elastic of his boxers against his waist. “Seems like the weekend was more eventful than I realized it was?”

                “Skinner is a lightweight and I took his alcohol before sending him on his merry way—is that eventful?” Scully winked at him, tossing the blanket on to the couch before sliding to her feet, the tee shirt barely covering her ass. “Now do we have a deal or do you want me to accidentally say it loudly how little it takes to get you inebriated to your very chatty secretary?”

                “Alright, alright, alright—I’ll buy you time, but don’t continue to fuck around and get your asses in the office posthaste,” It was more than a little discernible from Skinner’s tone that he was completely done with Scully’s negotiations as he raised his voice just a touch before hanging up on her curtly.

                “Well, that was temerarious of him,” Scully put the phone on the base and looked over at Mulder as he was gathering the last of the pillows from the floor. “Are you upset that I didn’t tell you about Skinner coming to my apartment half plastered to talk about you?”

                “Not entirely and not for the reason that you’d think…but I hope you didn’t think that you needed to keep it from me,” Mulder tugged at the bottom of the tee shirt, guiding her toward the bedroom door, his eyebrow elevating as he kept his eyes on hers. “Did I really have you so anxious and lost that you couldn’t come to me right away with that?”

                “It wasn’t necessarily you that had me feeling that way—I wasn’t in control over my own emotions and I felt a little helpless standing at the fringe of a choice, without any idea of knowing if there was an end in sight that would leave me breathing the same air as you,” Scully swallowed hard and willingly allowed him to lead her straight to the bathroom where he left her standing in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

                “When I was lying in the hospital bed, I kept thinking you’d come walking back through the door to smack me, tell me that I was a dumbass, or by some miracle, reciprocate what I had said…but you didn’t. I spent a lot of time thinking about how much I missed the predictability of you coming back to me, of giving me a harsh dose of reality, and I didn’t really want to face losing that again,” Mulder flipped the water on in the shower stall, sliding his hands into the water, looking back at her while he spoke. “Well, I’m not going into the office smelling like two rounds of sex, Scully, are you?”

                “Then don’t lose me,” Scully was blushing as she crossed her arms, watching his back muscles flex as he reached for a stray bottle of body wash. “A shower would be nice but no funny stuff—I don’t think Skinner is that good at buying time and I don’t think a quickie in the shower is a skill either one of us have in the cards for a third round this quickly.”

                “It’s going to be awkward enough for you that you’re going to walk into work with wet hair, smelling like all of my bathroom products,” Mulder smirked and raised his eyebrows at her as he got the hot water to the optimum temperature. “Smelling distinctly like sex on top of that would just be a little bit bastardly of me, don’t you think?”

                Scully nodded, her footsteps taking her toward the shower, the heat of the water already emitting like fog into the air, inviting her forward. “I’ve had my fair share of problematic situations but I don’t know that walking into work like that is a great idea for either of us. Need a quick clean then I can retrieve what I left in my emergency bag…and pray it has clean panties in it.”

                “You should probably cool it with the panties talk while I attempt to make this shower clinical and fast,” Mulder couldn’t help but stare a little as she pulled his tee shirt off and maneuvered into the shower first, standing before him in all of her steamy, now wet from head to toe, glory. “That’s going to be more difficult than I had anticipated.”

 

 

               

 

9:05 AM

FBI Building – Garage Entrance

               

                The drive in from Mulder’s apartment was nothing short of tense as Scully spent the better part of it fixated over covering up the visible hickeys along the curve of her neck and collarbone, the visible hints of exactly where her body had been. They had both thanked their lucky stars that Scully’s emergency bag had every piece of clothing that she needed in her car and that the phone call that nearly interrupted their second go at sex on Mulder’s floor was Skinner instead of Kersh, to say the least. Mulder had fallen mute the moment that he clicked his seatbelt into place but managed to sneak a glance at the woman next to him as she dabbed coverup along her freshly cleansed skin as best as she could under the circumstances. She slid her fingers through still wet hair, avoiding the ring finger with makeup half caked along her print, lip between her teeth. She felt his eyes, still hungry despite their oncoming predicament, on her and felt the blush forming across the parts of her that clothes concealed, this time. She stole her own thoughtful glances as she realized that he had his own little reminders of their rather interesting encounter and weren’t exactly hidden by the collar of his shirt as his fingers roughly brushed along each little welt. She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she realized he was blushing right along with her, only he couldn’t hide it as his cheeks lit up like Christmas in July, nearly matching the little marks she had left on his neck.

                Mulder pulled into the parking space, his eyes averting to the dashboard as he caught a glimpse of Scully hiking up her skirt to yank her nylons back up, the clicking of her garter suspenders apparent as she clicked the first into place. “Scully, Jesus Christ…a little warning might be nice considering I can’t go walking into Kersh’s office with a raging hard on.”               

                “You sure about that?” Scully grunted, her tongue between her teeth as she moved from one thigh to the other, securing her thigh highs while her eyes drifted over toward the heavily flushed man in the driver’s seat. “Mulder…I refuse to walk into that building with my nylons around my ankles because they won’t stay up.”

                “You are going to make this day excruciatingly awkward, aren’t you?” Mulder leaned against the steering wheel, the cool leatherette against his forehead as he shut his eyes for a brief moment, the heat in his face throbbing with every breath he took.

                “Not purposely,” Scully couldn’t hold in the laugh as she straightened out her skirt and reached over to squeeze his thigh, the reaction of which was his forehead sliding aptly to the horn for just a moment, the loud squelch filling the entire parking structure with the echo. “On second thought…”

                “Dammit!” Mulder didn’t want to admit that he kind of enjoyed the feeling of her hand on his thigh even if she scared him half to death. “You might cause my early demise today.”

                “You can’t possibly be that close to getting another erection after having two rounds of sex, Mulder,” Scully still had her hand on his leg as she raised her eyebrows, looking at him almost in disbelief, her voice a little sultry as she rubbed her lipstick more evenly. “I mean, I’m incredibly flattered by the idea but there are limits…unless you have a talent you’d like to tell me about.”

                Mulder swallowed hard and fixed his tie while his eyes lingered on her hand across the space above his knee, his voice dropping into a lower register for just a moment. “You’re gorgeous and you know it…plus, I think we both know we barely cracked the surface of what we’ve been holding back for years.”

                “Keep complimenting me like that and we’ll really be in trouble,” Scully checked herself in the visor mirror for the umpteenth time and exhaled slowly before collecting herself enough to slip out of the car, closing the door softly.

                Mulder shoved the keys into his pocket, grasped the briefcase from behind the seat that he had carried some of his documents home in, and got out of the car. He stood and adjusted his grip on the case while closing the door just as Scully came around to the driver’s side to meet him. She couldn’t tell if he was nervous or consumed by the fortified smell of his shampoo and body wash still permeating heavily off of her, the softer, less intense odor of her hand cream blending with the heavily masculine, shared scent from their shower. They smoothed out their clothes after a quick double check of door locks, the silence resuming in the echo chamber of their parking level, half filled despite the time of day as they both approached the entrance to the building. Scully’s heels tapped the cement, loudly adding an unintended rhythm that made the hole in Mulder’s cheek that much larger as he bit harder, desiring nothing more than to catch a glimpse of her swaying as she walked.

                Post-sex exhilaration was bringing out the pervert tendencies in both of them as they felt the air go out of their lungs with every step they took, tension climbing as the temptation was readied, building like static electricity in the air.

                “How long do you think it’ll take before Skinner is on the war path looking for us?” Mulder pushed the up button on the elevator, listening to the momentary pause before the motor began to whir as it made the descent to them. “I mean, we’re only a little late.”

                “We were supposed to be here a little over thirty minutes ago and if history has any way of repeating itself…Skinner is probably breathing fire by now wondering where the hell we are,” Scully had a knowing expression on her face, the curves of her lips upturned just enough to be more than a little inviting as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. “I’d say he’s been on the war path less than ten minutes after he hung up on me.”

                They were not-so-subtly relieved that the space was empty as both entered the squared off space, Mulder’s finger pushing their floor before joining Scully against the back railing. Mulder stared forward and stood in an identical pose as Scully, inching his fingers across the metal until his pinky slid across the top of hers. He was grateful for a quiet elevator as he could hear her take a full breath of air through her nose and hold it while catching a glimpse of her blushing through her foundation in his peripheral. It was a bit of a dirty trick to play but she didn’t pull away as her lipstick covered bottom lip curved between her teeth while she resisted the urge to turn her head as she tilted her palm a little closer, sliding her elbow against him. He smirked in spite of himself, knowing damn well how poorly this looked if anyone were to suddenly have a need to use the elevator but the little vibrations of electricity flowing through both of them had potential consequences not registering for even a moment.

                “Getting through this day just may kill us both,” Scully tilted her head back and finally looked at him, her damp hair building a subtle curl where she had been running her fingers through it during the car ride.

                Mulder nodded, turning his chin toward her just a little bit as he made eye contact again, gazing into her sapphire and steel eyes, leaning in her direction. “What a way to go…what kind of flowers do you think they’ll have at the funeral?”

                Neither of them had noticed that the elevator had dinged but were instantly aware of the door sliding open along within the split second that had passed before the throat clearing cough filled the already claustrophobic space, reminding them of where they were. Both stood a little straighter, their backs went rigid, and full blown redness bloomed in their cheeks as they stood face-to-face with Skinner. They knew that their immediate future would be thorny and delicate but hadn’t fully bargained for the extent of the embarrassment and irritation he had been slowly brewing while waiting impatiently for them to arrive.

                “Oh my God, stop it,” Skinner waited for the doors to fully close before he lit into them, managing to keep his tone somewhat down as he narrowed his eyes. “Whatever you’re doing, wherever it was headed, knock it off.”

                It was hard to wipe the grin off of his face but Mulder inhaled a deep breath and met the grumpy stare head on, tossing out a particularly ill-thought retort in the process simply as a last ditch effort to soften the heat in his face. “I swear I’ve heard those words before but it was when I was about sixteen and got caught skipping curfew in my Dad’s car with the rarest of dates still in the passenger seat…”

                “Mulder…” Scully rolled her eyes and watched Skinner’s jaw clench and eyes bounce between the two of them, not knowing who to glare at more.

                “I could let you just hang yourselves out to dry and waltz into Kersh’s office right now if you really want to play the joke card,” Skinner did a double take looking at Scully and brought his palm to his face, sighing into it. “You’ve got to cover up the love-bite, for Christ’s sake, Scully.”

                “Shit,” Scully was rooting in her purse knowing that the doors were preparing to open for a second time as she pulled the concealer out, angling the mirror until she could see one of the spots on her neck signaling at her like a red light waiting. “I thought I had it covered up.”

                “What in the fuck did you do to her?” Skinner started to talk as Scully feverishly patted at the spot with the concealer pad, glancing between them like a disappointed father rather than a friend or colleague. “Wait, wait, no, no, don’t answer that.”

                Mulder had both hands up in the air ready to make a few animated gestures as the doors opened and Scully put a final dabble of makeup along the curve of her neck where her collar no longer covered. “Asking stupid questions seems to be a theme for you lately, isn’t it, Sir?”

                “I’m going to ignore your sarcasm and let you know that I gave Kersh the excuse that Scully’s car broke down, you drove her in, and traffic was a nightmare,” Skinner squinted at them as they were already outside of the open elevator, watching the flow of looky-loos in the hallway.

                Scully took a final look in the small, circular mirror before snapping it shut and dropping it into her purse, following Skinner and Mulder into the hallway. “I don’t hear any loud yelling or slamming doors yet so that story must’ve satisfied him—momentarily.”

                The reassuring moment was short lived and fleeting as they came around the corner, meeting the frazzled, frizzy blond that usually kept her backside plastered to the adjoining space next to Kersh’s office. She was wearing far too much coral lipstick today and her eyeliner was a touch crooked to go along with her un-pressed, yet designer top that she tried to hide beneath a soft, black cardigan with her linen, heavily pleated pencil skirt that was cut just below the knee, buttons at the back that served no purpose other than to draw attention to her ass. She forced a smile and crossed her arms after nearly knocking Scully completely on her ass, giving each one of them an equally confusing look before rubbing her lips together a little suggestively.

                “So, you _are_ here…he’s been looking for you,” Kersh’s assistant had her eyes glued to Mulder until Skinner started to slide away toward the center of the hallway. “ _All_ of you.”

                “Oh, are we not allowed to go get a cup of coffee first…Jen?” Mulder wasn’t usually this awful with names but her name had never actually imprinted on his brain beyond the descriptive of ‘Kersh’s secretary’.

                She half glared, aiming the majority of her hateful look at Scully before burning a hole through Mulder, her voice monotone and unenthused. “It’s Jill, and no, why don’t you have a seat while I let him know that you’re here…”

                “Of all of the women in this building to piss off, you just had to piss off the one with a massive grudge,” Scully was still painfully aware of the hickeys hiding beneath of her makeup as she slid onto the couch next to Mulder, dwarfed between them as the fidgeting started in nearly immediately.

                “I can’t help it—I never listen to her name. She’s always staring at me and I try to just ignore it. It’s not flattering, it’s weird,” Mulder’s hands were sweaty as Scully’s jostling of the couch cushion was causing his hip and thigh to rub up against her, spurring a little more interest than was necessary at this moment. “Would you sit still?”

                “Everything is warm and I feel like she was staring at them,” Scully frowned and tried to sit still with her hands folded in her lap.

                Skinner cleared his throat and glowered at both of them, his articulation incredibly parental as he caught them both by surprise. “My ass is on the line and if you both don’t shut the hell up, I’ll throw you straight under the bus and regret nothing.”

                The sarcasm laced rebuttal was fully readied in the chamber as Jill came waltzing out of Kersh’s office, a smug little grin on her face reducing the interaction to a hushed, awkward moment that she was interrupting. “He’s ready for you.”

                This was the walk of shame that Scully had been envisioning about coming into work as she felt Jill’s eyes on her, hot with jealousy and teeming with the scenarios that could be swirling around in that typically bitchy, overly chatty, extremely territorial brain. Jill was almost the opposite of Arlene in nearly every sense and it had Scully close to retching all over the FBI’s heavily budgeted, gaudy carpeting. She was already picturing the rumor mill spitting out idea after idea the moment the door closed them into Kersh’s expanse of an office while Jill busily fueled each little story to anyone that was willing to listen. Scully sighed deeply as she placed herself in the middle again, white knuckling the armrests of the chair as she glanced over at Jill standing in the doorway with a self-satisfied look on her face, as though she had just made the final move to take the game board.

                “Miss Evers…would you have someone bring up four coffees and enough cream and sugar for the four cups, please?” Kersh glanced at the doorway, waiting only for her nod before sitting down across from the waiting trio. “I could’ve done without waiting for two of the three of you today but it is what it is as per usual. We were set to discuss your little mess with interrupting the business going on in your former office but a case came across my desk that’ll have you busy enough that you couldn’t possibly get into Agent Spender or Agent Fowley’s way in the basement…”

                “While they destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for,” Mulder couldn’t resist as the two people that took away the one assignment that mattered to him were essentially turning it into a routine cover up, burying it even further amongst the cobwebs.

                Scully turned her head toward Mulder and crossed her legs in his direction, gripping his knee for a fleeting moment to capture his attention. “Mulder, don’t.”

                “You’re skating on thin ice, both of you,” Kersh slid their copies across to them as the door opened and a courier carried a tray of coffee into the room, leaving it on the desk without making any eye contact with anyone. “As I was saying, the violent crimes unit has asked for our expertise on a rather unique situation that would give you both time in the field and exposure to more than just punching vouchers and cataloging the manure, as Agent Mulder has so eloquently described.”

                “What does that have to do with me, Sir, I am not in this division nor am I in charge of Agent Mulder or Scully, as you’ve made that abundantly clear multiple times,” Skinner hadn’t bothered to open the file after picking it up as his eyebrows scrunched at the superior Agent in the room.

                Kersh took delight in giving away only bits and pieces as he tilted his head to the side, smirking just enough to make the vein start to pop out on the center of Skinner’s forehead. “I will be running as supervisory Agent in Charge but you will be the field eyes and ears so that nothing goes wrong.”

                “Sounds more like a baby sitter than a field assignment,” Scully hadn’t even thought about her words as she scrutinized Kersh’s ability to reduce them to nothing more than an irritant, like rocks in his shoes.

                “Not at all, Agent Scully,” Kersh slowly blinked and opened the file, gathering the top document in his hands, giving them the breakdown of why they were there. “The University of Maryland has had fourteen individual reports in the last forty-five days of abduction and assaults of a focused type of student class. All of the women were between the ages of 29 and 38, engaged, upper, middle class women wearing their engagement rings. They were taken between the hours of 10pm and 1am from various locations on campus and were returned with defensive wounds, brutalized to a point that they did not know where they had been nor where they were.”

                “Serial rape case,” Mulder didn’t want to be intrigued but he was as he glanced at the laundry list of information that seemed to imply that there was more questions than answers. “What do they know?”

                “That’s actually the problem…the information in front of you is as far as they have gotten. The victims never saw faces, the rape kits came back with no viable DNA, and the only taken item in each case was the highly expensive engagement ring,” Kersh emphasized the information about the ring, almost as though it were a measuring point for the case.

                “I’m assuming that none of the rings have ended up on the resale market of any kind?” Scully thumbed through the photos of each engagement ring, almost taken aback at how expensive each one likely was. “These are walking targets for a thief…there is easily over sixty thousand dollars in jewelry looking strictly at these rings. The assaults could’ve been simply a bonus depending on how quickly this man was looking to make a fast buck.”

                “Not one,” Kersh shook his head and gestured toward the coffee, offering the additional caffeinated beverages to them, as though his next words were going to be cause for needing it. “That’s where you will be a necessity to the case and how our expertise is vital to catching this guy.”

                “You’re putting her in harm’s way to capture some asshole who is kidnapping, raping and beating defenseless women? You can’t be serious,” Mulder didn’t like where this was going as he glanced at Scully’s eyes widening, at the detailing of the injuries the women sustained, his anger swelling in his belly.

                “Agent Scully will not be undercover alone. All of these women have something in common and that is that they are engaged,” Kersh understood the worry but didn’t allow it to phase him in the slightest as he renewed eye contact with Mulder, raising both eyebrows behind his spectacles. “You will be posing as a couple. Scully will be a returning student and you will be a professor in the psychology department. I made this arrangement specifically so that she will have back up at all times and you are able to maintain cover. Understood? You’ll be starting this assignment as soon as you walk out of the door this afternoon.”

                Skinner nearly choked on the coffee and felt the icy glare from Scully as he hid an incredulous laugh into the paper cup, his eyes half bugging out over the scenarios in which this could go disastrous before it even began. “…coffee…it’s…um…hot.”

                “I’ll bet it is,” Mulder and Scully said it at the same time knowing damn well that he was contemplating that they had just jumped straight out of the frying pan and into the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s right…  
> To be continued.
> 
> Quotes by  
> JRR Tolkien  
> Mary Balogh
> 
> Huge thank you to Monika for helping me through this and realizing that there was a diamond mine hiding in this (aka a sequel)…thank you to EVERYONE for being patient and yes, there WILL be a sequel.

**Author's Note:**

> **This is a bit of an experiment so please go easy on me. The feedback is essential so please leave a comment!**
> 
> Quotes by:  
> Kayla King  
> H.G. Wells  
> Atticus
> 
> Thank you goes out to Monika for reading passages so I wouldn’t completely go insane coming up with the right wording and ideas. It has to lead somewhere.


End file.
